Black on Black
by ScintillatingTart
Summary: Like pleasure and a little pain; the sacred and profane. She was gone, but not forgotten...
1. Chapter 1

Clearly, I am a mere mortal with access to the internet and do not own the awesome characters or anything affiliated with Criminal Minds. If they chose to sue me, they'd laugh at the state of my bank account(s) and give up trying to squeeze blood from my turnip truck.

Rated M for violence, gore, trigger situations (rape, torture, abduction), generous usage of the F-bomb, and the possibility of future sexing. The title is blatantly yanked from my favorite girl band, Heart, and their song "Black on Black II". Look up the lyrics.

Black on Black  
By ScintillatingTart

Part one:

It had been two years; there wasn't a single moment that it didn't seem like an eternity. Two years since they'd turned around and she was gone. Two years of searching, hoping, praying that she was somehow miraculously still alive. Two years of utter hell.

But somehow, the remainder of the BAU team managed to pull their bootstraps up and go on with life, albeit in a way that was wrong, senseless, and somehow perverted by the loss of their own, over and over again. Gideon, Elle, Garcia…

They had gone to bed, safe and sound in a little motel, and when they'd awakened, Penelope Garcia was gone. Everything that could be done to track her down, to find out what had happened, had been done. All the leads in the case had gone cold long before, and with nothing left to do but assume the worst, the team had little choice but to admit defeat.

It was so much darker, so much more hopeless without her. Every case reopened the wounds; each profile led them further away from her. If she was still alive, they had no way in hell of finding her. If she was dead, they had no way in hell of finding her. She was so far off the grid that the grid didn't even exist anymore.

They had no closure, no sense of finality. She was there one minute and was gone the next, with no clues as to where, when, how, or why. The only thing they had was the contents of her purse, spilled pell-mell in a hotel room, all of her credit cards, driver's license, and her keys accounted for. They had nothing.

Two years of not knowing, of not daring to hope one way or the other. Two years of shattered dreams and fevered prayers that had gone unanswered by the God that had seemingly forsaken them all. Two years of phantom perfume in the bullpen and tricks of the light and sounds that didn't quite belong, like she was still there.

It truly was more than anyone could bear. They contacted her brothers, asking if it was time to look into declaring her legally dead. The contrary answer startled everyone, but it still lingered in the back of their collective mind.

If she wasn't dead, where the hell was she?

"This unsub shows no hesitation in first strangling, then mutilating, his female victims. We have no doubt that the unsub is male, due to the sheer power it would take to overcome a victim in this manner," Hotchner said in a cold, emotionless voice. "He clearly has the upper hand, and the women he attacks know it and bow to his will. Missy Hansen and Caroline Duvall showed no defensive wounds. This implies that the victims being overtaken and dispatched before they can react."

Prentiss interjected, "The unsub is very aggressive toward women in general, and is most likely abusive to any family members he has. We believe he is a Caucasian male in his mid-to-late forties, tall in stature, and takes great pride in his physique. When you identify him, he will be especially dangerous because of his sheer physical strength."

"His kills have become more frequent in the last seven months," Rossi added, "which could signify that his usual outlet of frustration is untouchable. Look into couples where the husband or boyfriend matches the profile and the wife or girlfriend is pregnant. Look into domestic violence reports, check divorce proceedings, or recent deaths. He's hiding behind something completely normal and using it like a perverted emotional shield."

"He won't go down without a fight," Emily said when Rossi fell silent. "He will likely try to take the object of his obsession with him, or kill them before we can make the positive identification. He thinks it's all a game, and doesn't realize that children who break their toys get punished."

Reid circled the dots on the map in red. "All of his fresh kills have been inside this circle. He picks his victims very carefully, abducting them in public places with incredible finesse. We believe he's taken women that remind him of the object of his desire, even in little ways. This is his comfort zone; this is where we believe he's hiding." He stopped speaking and licked his lips nervously, wondering if they were sealing some poor woman's fate by hunting down this monster on his turf. They really had no idea where he would strike again; it was all guesswork. The similarities in pattern between this case and the Garcia cold case were striking, but he could just be holding his breath and crossing his eyes to make patterns exist where there had been only chaos before.

"The center of the circle is void of any violent attacks," Morgan said, shifting a little and crossing his arms in a pensive motion, his fingers stroking his chin idly. "It appears to encompass the downtown area and some of the residential areas. He may be doing his hunting in this area, and then taking his kills elsewhere. He may also live in one of those residential areas."

"We can only offer you a working profile and a hypothesis based on the facts at hand," JJ said, shifting from one foot to the other. "The rest of it is legwork."

The police officers looked between themselves and nodded, muttering under their breaths about the FBI coming in and making them look like idiots. But truth be told, after forty bodies, Westville, Kansas, was overwhelmed. They needed to catch this man and convict him. They needed all the help they could get.

Westville was a tiny town off the interstate, barely big enough for a gas station, a diner, a bank, and a grain scale at the co-op. The only motel housed grubby travelers tired of driving the endless prairies and flatlands. What was there to stroke a murderer's ego? They didn't even have internet unless you got satellite.

Perfect privacy.

It was as much a motivation as anything else. Not a good enough excuse, but the only one they had to go on at the moment.

"We need breakfast before we get started," Rossi pointed out as the few policemen disbursed. "The diner seems to be the only option unless we go for the highway and go way out of the way."

Reid flashed him a troubled smile. "Nothing like a little excess grease to make the sick feeling in your stomach get worse," he pointed out blandly. "Is anyone else feeling like we're missing something?"

"We're missing a lot," Emily said, looking away quickly before they could accuse her of pouring salt in the wounds. "Besides, we're usually missing a lot when we head into the field. For all we know, he's been watching us since we got into town. We are a bit of flash, after all, and this is West Buttfuck."

"Westville," JJ corrected, letting the point fly over her head without even attempting to play ball.

Everything had changed two years ago: now they had to function like a broken piece of machinery, missing cogs and springs and the oil that kept everything running smoothly. Without Garcia, they were broken. That's all there was to it.

All the levity, the casual teasing, was gone. It was all business or no business. They were all too afraid to be close; they might lose someone else. Everything had changed. Nothing was remotely the same. The world was upside down, topsy-turvy, unstable in the worst possible way.

"Are you sure we shouldn't just go to the grocery store?" Reid asked. "Statistics show that cooks in restaurants –"

"Reid, are you being a chickenshit?" Rossi asked, raising an eyebrow. "I'm sure the food isn't that bad."

"That's like saying that botulism is just a bacterium," Reid challenged. "And then people started shooting it into their faces."

JJ flinched. She could look at gory crime scene photos all day long, but if you mentioned Botox or cosmetic procedures, she got seriously squicked out. It was enough to turn her stomach, and definitely enough to make her rethink food intake. "I'll stay here and write the press release," she said.

"You want us to bring you anything?" Hotch asked. "Coffee? Danish?"

"Coffee. Whatever looks like it's safe to eat." She looked at Morgan. "You'll pick something, right? I feel safe about that."

Morgan snorted and smirked. "I like my eggs sunny side up, JJ."

"Not exactly the safest food decision ever," Reid pointed out. "I'll pick something for you, JJ. Something safe. No chance of botulism."

"Thanks," JJ said, rolling her eyes with a sigh. "Besides, small town diners are kind of creepy. The locals always look at you like they want to shoot you. It's almost as bad as a bar in the middle of nowhere." She stopped speaking, realizing that she was giving away too much of her tough girl image. "Emily, do you want to stay here and help me?"

Prentiss wrinkled her nose, but nodded. "Yeah," she agreed. "If the guys survive breakfast, we'll know it's safe to go in."

Hotchner sighed. "Coffee and a muffin, then?" he asked.

"Oh, I'm good with the coffee out of the pot over there," Emily said with a wry smile. "Don't worry about me."

Evelyn Webster caught a hint of her reflection in the steel of the walk-in door. Before she could stop herself, she looked away. It was too late; her stomach roiled, boiling acid up into her esophagus. It was all she could do not to throw up. The baby flip-flopped in response to her rising anxiety and she closed her eyes, breathing deeply and pressing a hand to her belly. "It's okay, little one," she whispered. "Mama's okay. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to scare you." She opened her eyes and opened the door. She retrieved the strawberries and beat a hasty retreat.

She wasn't paying enough attention not to walk straight into Silas. It was like running straight into a brick wall, and she bounced off of him, falling to the floor before he could catch her. Not that he would. He never did. She was awkward on her feet, the baby weight making her unsteady and uneasy, and he didn't give a damn if she fell or not. He never did.

"Get up," he ordered. When she didn't move, he grabbed her arm and hauled her to her feet. "I said get up. That means get the hell up."

"I'm sorry," she stammered. "Please let go: you're hurting me."

He sneered at her, but after another vicious squeeze, he released his hold on her arm. "Do you think you can handle the kitchen for a couple of hours? I have to go into town."

She nodded and swallowed. "Yes," Evelyn whispered, licking her lips nervously. "I'll manage."

"Try not to be stupid."

"I'll try," she said, averting her gaze as she took a step forward. He liked thinking that she was submissive to his will; it made her life slightly better to pretend that he was in control of her. If she relinquished her tiny bit of self-control, she would fall forever into an abyss and never recover.

The baby needed her. That was the only reason she hadn't tried to get away.

Silas grabbed her hand and pulled her closer. He reached out and patted her belly. "He's going to be a big, strong boy, just like his daddy," he said with a smirk. The smirk faded. "You're getting fat again. Have you been sneaking food?"

"No," Evelyn said sharply, shaking her head with violence. "No, I swear. I'm not even snacking. I promise." She closed her eyes, willing the guilty flush to leave her cheeks. She'd justified the lies, the little bit of extra food, by telling herself it was for the baby. Everything was for the baby; the baby was the only reason she was still fighting. She was fighting for the baby, not for herself. She was nothing.

He pushed her away. "Just see that you don't," he said. His tone was cold and harsher than usual. "We can't have you looking like a pig in front of the customers."

"No, sir," she murmured. "I won't."

"Get back in the kitchen already," he ordered, pointing. "It's the breakfast rush, for Christ's sake. You're such a stupid bitch today."

She wanted to tell him where to go and what to do, but she held her tongue. Subservient, submissive, let him take complete control. She turned on her heels and retreated back into the diner's kitchen. It had been a learning curve, but if she tried hard enough, she had a handle on her self-control.

The smell of eggs cooking was enough to trigger a little bit of nausea, but she fought it back. Everything made her sick lately. The baby was very good for that. So was her miserable existence. She was fighting for survival, fighting the hellhounds on her heels. It was a struggle that she couldn't win. Every day, she was losing ground. Every day, she thought about running away and throwing herself in front of a truck. Every day, she fought herself.

Her heart was sicker than her stomach, betraying her with its dogged beat though she begged it to stop. Just end it. Take a knife and end it all. Save herself and the baby. Save herself from hell.

She reached for a knife and ran her thumb against the edge before she gave in to her cowardice and began slicing the tops off of her strawberries.

"Pancake platter, toast with sunny side up eggs, and a hash with scrambled eggs," Melanie called from the doorway. "We've got some hotties at the bar. And they're packing heat."

Evelyn nodded and set aside the berries. "Cops."

"FBI," Melanie corrected.

Evelyn looked up. "The big guns," she said. "Something big?"

"Only the murders." Melanie sighed. "They want to talk to you or Silas. Ask you some questions."

Evelyn's heart started beating faster. The baby moved. She cracked eggs. It all happened so fast, she didn't know what happened until she was coming to. The man that was holding her up had to be some kind of a god. A beautiful, beautiful god, not to beheld by mere mortals.

"Drink this," he said softly, lifting a glass of juice to her lips. "You fainted. Have you eaten anything today?"

She sipped the juice, closing her eyes. "No," she murmured. "I haven't had time."

"Well, you'd better make the time," he countered. "I'm Derek Morgan. Melanie says you're Evelyn Webster and you own this place."

"Silas owns it," she murmured, pushing his hand and the glass away. "He'll be mad if he finds out you did that."

"What, give you something to drink?" Morgan asked. "I'll pay for it if that's what you mean."

She shook her head and pursed her lips together. "Help me up. I have to cook."

"You need to rest."

"I'll rest when I'm dead," Evelyn said, using him as leverage and pushing herself to her feet. She noticed two other men hovering in the doorway. "Thank you, Derek Morgan. Now, if you please, could you go back to the dining room and wait for your food?"

Morgan put his hands up in surrender. "Okay," he agreed, "but if you pass out again, I'll be making a return visit."

She closed her eyes and inhaled. "I am not a damsel in distress, Mr. Morgan," she said, opening her eyes and trying to steady her weak heartbeat. She was lying and they both knew it; her defensive stance and the stubborn set of her jaw gave her away.

It was a matter of time before he backed down. She knew he would. The men left her kitchen and she went back to work.

But she made sure his pancake platter had a couple of slices of bacon and eggs just the way he liked them before she passed it through the window. To anyone else, it would look like a lucky guess. To him, it would be an anomaly. Something that didn't quite make sense. He would have to investigate further, and when he did, he would understand. He had to.

Agent Derek Morgan was looking right past her and couldn't see what was right in front of his face. Men were stupid. He wasn't stupid. He'd never been stupid. He was beautiful, sweet, and not stupid.

She'd lost what it was to be her; all she needed was someone to find it for her.

She winced as she pricked her thumb with the knife.

Evelyn Webster's shattered soul begged for release. She was praying for a miracle. All she had left was the baby.


	2. Chapter 2

Part two:

"They found six graves in this area," Reid said, looking around. There was nothing but field grasses in either direction for quite a distance. To come out here and disturb the solitude and decrepitude of the old property was profanity in its very basest reality. This had once been a church. It wasn't as if this unsub was burying people in the graveyard. He was dumping them around the ruins haphazardly in the grass. "I guess, technically, they weren't even buried."

"No, not so much," Rossi agreed. "They were dumped, but the asphyxiation and manner of mutilation is consistent with our guy, even if the mode of disposal isn't. It shows evolution and remorse of a type."

"But why here?" Prentiss asked. "There has to be a reason. Not just that it's a holy place; none of the other victims were dropped anywhere near a church."

"These are earlier kills, before he hardened himself into believing that what he's doing is justified," Hotch commented. "Look this way; that oak tree is clearly a landmark, as are the church ruins. He was drawing himself a map; a mental map so he could revisit his kills and no one else would think twice."

"The tree is on land belonging to the Webster family," Morgan said. "It marks the outer boundary of Westville. We can't go on his property without a court order."

"That doesn't mean we can't drive to the property line and have a look," Prentiss pointed out.

"Silas Webster is a valued member of the community," JJ said, frowning. "If we go after him without provocation, it's going to stir up a storm of god only knows what. We're going to have the whole town up in arms."

"He fits the profile, and he has a record," Morgan muttered.

"Petty theft does not a murderer make," Hotch replied. "For now, we go back to town and make inquiries. Talk to the wife. Talk to his employees. Talk to the community and find out what we're missing."

"The wife isn't going to talk," Morgan said. "She's pretty defensive. Classic signs of abuse; averts her eyes whenever an alpha asserts their dominance, denies that anything is wrong, body posture, cuff marks on her wrists, old scars. If she gives us anything workable, it'll be a miracle."

"Well, Derek, you can be pretty persuasive and charming when you want to be," Emily teased, winking at him. "You just need to push her buttons right and she'll come apart like putty in your hands."

"Not that likely," Reid said. "I'm pretty sure that we're missing something important. But it's getting dark and I don't think we should be out here after dark. It's kind of creepy, like something is going to jump out and make you pee your pants."

"Does that happen often to you, Reid?" Rossi inquired. "Because they make pills for that now."

She didn't sleep much anymore. She didn't even really realize the passage of time, either; days and months blended together into an endless parade of misery. She knew she was supposed to sleep when it was dark, but between the handcuffs biting into her wrists and the snoring from Silas's side of the bed, she just couldn't; when every part of her ached from his assaults, and blood curdled on her lips, she knew it was nighttime. He didn't take no for an answer.

He would wake her up soon; she knew that he'd been out all day, not just a couple of hours. There were more bodies that needed burying. That's how she earned her relative freedom in the diner's kitchen: she buried his victims and he let her loose during the day. She could do anything she wanted during the day, short of running away.

What little freedom she had was hard-won, and she wasn't about to relinquish it.

She just had to figure out how to point the FBI in the right direction.

She opened her eyes when he unlocked the cuff on her left wrist. "Tonight, baby, I want you to know just how damn lucky you are," he said. "Because I could do this to you in a heartbeat, but I won't because you're giving me a very special gift."

Evelyn didn't acknowledge his threat, or his plying her with payoffs. Your life for theirs.

Either way, it was penance.

He made sure her seatbelt was low and tight over her belly, then started the truck. He drove for a couple of miles, then parked under the old oak tree. "Here tonight."

She swallowed hard. "But E.J. is here," she protested very quietly. "You don't want to bury someone else here. Not with your own flesh and blood."

He pointed to a spot where the root gnarled up out of the ground. "Dig over there," he ordered, unbuckling her seatbelt and practically shoving her out of the truck. "Dig deeper than last time."

She worked at it for a long time, every muscle in her body aching with the torture. The baby kicked constantly, reassuring her that she would get through it. But after an hour of solid digging, she was getting tired and dizzy. It was difficult to hold the shovel, let alone dig. Her movements were further restricted by the baby's bulk, and she gave up.

SHE FELL TO THE GROUND.

It was the one thing she knew never to do, but she didn't care anymore. No one was going to save her; she'd given up on waiting for her knight in shining armor. She was going to die and she didn't care. Her fight was gone. She was just so tired.

She didn't even care when he hit her in the jaw with the shovel handle, trying to provoke a response from her. Or when he kicked her in the ribs.

She gave up.

They watched her bent over the stove, clutching her ribcage, using her free hand to sloppily stir a pot of grits with a giant whisk. Reid cleared his throat. "Mrs. Webster…"

Evelyn hissed, "Don't call me that. Don't ever fucking call me that. It's a lie, just like everything Silas Webster ever said."

"What should we call you, then?" Emily inquired, coming in. "We haven't met. I'm SSA Emily Prentiss and this is Dr. Spencer Reid. I understand that you've been cooking meals for our team; I appreciate you doing that for us."

Evelyn exhaled and turned to look at them. "You're welcome, Agent Prentiss."

Emily winced. "Have you had that bruise looked at?"

"Have you met Silas Webster?" Evelyn countered, crossing her arms over her chest, her face contorting in pain. "He doesn't believe in Western medicine."

"Did he do that to you?"

Evelyn smiled sadly. "Sugar, he's done a lot worse than that. I'll live. I can't say as much for all the other women you keep finding."

Reid hesitated a moment, then licked his lips. "You know that he's the man we're looking for?" he inquired.

Evelyn's gaunt face went stone cold. "I can tell you every grave that's been dug in the last year and tell you where they are," she said.

Emily's hand moved toward her gun. "How do you know that information, ma'am?" she inquired cautiously.

"Because he makes me dig the holes," the bruised and battered woman murmured. "It's my penance for staying alive. I'm the only one he's kept longer than a year. It's because I delivered a live child. That didn't last long, though – she was four days old when he drowned her." Her fragile state was carved into her face just as sure as he'd cut the lines with a knife. "He made me bury her. Under the oak tree. He tried to make me bury someone else there last night and I collapsed. E.J. didn't deserve that. Any of it. Please, tell your boss that I will cooperate if he promises to protect me and my baby. Silas went out after he dropped me here and hasn't come back."

"I don't know what to make of this," Reid said. "Why would you turn on him after all this time? You could have run before."

Her wan smile cut him to the core. He knew right then what she was going to say, but was still surprised when the words left her lips. "I'm not the first wife."

"Hotch, she's willing to give us all the information we want if we protect her from him," Reid said into his phone. "We're on our way to the county paper's office to verify whether or not she was lying about being his first wife. If we can verify that information, we can check into one of the other things she said –"

"She said something about a fresh grave at that oak tree," Emily added, knowing they were on speaker. "And a grave for a child named E.J."

"We'll go to the tree. Good work; I didn't think we'd get her to crack," Hotch said.

"He beat her up pretty badly," Emily said. "She's in survival mode now; she's not going to care about anything but getting out of there. We're the lesser of two evils."

"Turn right up here," Reid said. "Look, Hotch, we'll call you as soon as we do that research." He hung up and looked at Prentiss. "Something's been bothering me since we stepped into that kitchen."

"What?" Emily asked. "Besides that some asshole could do that to another human being."

"If she's not the first wife, where are the others?"

"Given Silas Webster's history, I'd assume somewhere close to home, where he can gloat over them," Emily said with a shake of the head as she parked the SUV. "Probably buried in plain sight from the house, where he could torture Evelyn with the knowledge that someday soon she's going to be joining them. He takes great delight in the torturous aspects."

"And if he did that on a regular basis, Evelyn would know his regular patterns and be able to tell when he was working up to the deed – Em, I think he's planning on killing her. Very soon. We need to get her out of there."

"This first," Emily said as they got out of the car and headed inside. She walked right up to the counter and set her gun on it, then flashed her badge. "SSA Emily Prentiss, FBI," she said firmly. "I need to see all the marriage announcements going back twenty years."

The girl behind the counter swallowed hard. "Well, you're very lucky – we just finished digitizing everything to DVD and –"

"Stop talking," Emily ordered. "This is an emergency."

"We can reference the index for the announcements, and then pull the DVDs," the girl stammered. "What parameters?"

"Silas Webster, Westville," Reid supplied. He didn't want to get in Emily's way when she was throwing her weight around.

The girl frowned. "We have five records," she said, getting up and heading into a back office. When she came back, she had several DVDs with her. "Give me a minute and I'll print them for you."

"Thank you," Reid said.

The sheets came off the printer hot enough that Prentiss nearly burnt her fingers. "Five women," she said, flipping through them, "all of them with black hair and green eyes." Her heart stopped dead. "Reid."

He looked at the paper in her hand. "Fuck." He sprinted out the door, Emily hot on his heels.

It was the first time she'd ever heard him use that word. She understood completely.


	3. Chapter 3

Part three:

"If there is a child buried here, we have to be very careful," Rossi said. "No shovels, just a trowel and brush."

"Where do we start looking?" JJ asked, putting her hands on her hips. "It's a needle in a haystack."

"Start by working your way around the tree, looking for anything unusual," Hotch ordered, passing trowels and brushes to JJ and Morgan. "Rossi and I will look for the new grave she described."

Morgan and JJ had almost made it halfway around the tree when a missing chunk of bark caught Derek's eye. "Here we go," he said, kneeling to look at it. "Emily Jennifer. She's got to be buried in this tangle of roots down here…"

"Derek, look at the handwriting in the carving," JJ said, backing away a couple of steps. "It's Garcia's."

He stared at it a moment. "Coincidence," he dismissed with a shrug. "A lot of people write like that."

"Not in block print. Who do you know that uses that angled underwrap on a capital Y in print? No one but Penelope Garcia."

Derek shrugged off what JJ said, preferring not to think about it at all. He gently broke the roots with the trowel and frowned. "I've got bones." He made a quick call, hearing Hotch's phone ring not far away. "Found the infant's remains."

"And we found his newest victim," Hotch said.

JJ took the phone from Morgan's grasp and said, "We have a gravemarker in Penelope Garcia's handwriting. I need you two to come have a look."

Morgan sighed and his frown deepened. "JJ, why did you do that?"

"Because no matter what else the unsub could do to her, there's one thing that she wouldn't be able to give up: her handwriting," JJ said angrily. "Why are you fighting me, Derek?"

"Because you're looking at it through a filter." What he would never tell her was that his best friend meant more than the world to him and he couldn't live through more disappointment. If she was dead, so would be his heart. A smear of black on black, invisible wounds would kill him slowly, wreaking havoc along the way. Best not have any more expectations.

Penelope Garcia was dead to him.

When he wanted to be stealthy, Silas Webster did a damn good job of it. "C'mon, baby, let's close up shop and go take a ride," he said, wrapping his arms around Evelyn and squeezing her till she squeaked in abject pain.

"No," Evelyn whispered. If she went with him, she was dead. If she stayed in the diner's kitchen, she was dead, but she at least had a chance to fight back. The knives were sharpened: she'd done that right after Prentiss and Reid had left. The skillet was sizzling hot and as heavy as cast iron could be. The meat scissors were within reach, if she could just get her arms free…

"You ungrateful bitch," he hissed into her ear, squeezing harder. "I've done all of this for you and that bastard in your belly." He released her and she tried to steady herself. "I should have killed you before. You're nothing but trouble."

She grabbed the scissors and stabbed them into his forearm. "You have no fucking idea," Penelope Garcia hissed, grabbing for the nearest knife.

He beat her to it.

They were too late; Emily knew that the moment they stepped into the diner. It was vacant, save the terrified waitress Melanie. Prentiss gestured to Reid and hissed, "Let Hotch know what's going on, and then back me up."

"Like hell I'm going to let you just go in there alone," Reid hissed. "You're just as likely to end up dead as Garcia is. He's not stable."

Prentiss smiled a little, a tiny tugging at the edges of her lips. "Spencer Reid, you're sweet, but I'm CIA," she reminded him. "I'll take the shot as soon as I get it." She finished strapping on her vest and winked at him. "Besides, if I die, who will you have to watch old French porn with?"

Before he could react, she was on her feet and in the back, gun drawn. "Silas Webster, my name is Emily Prentiss," she said in a very solemn, clipped tone. "I'm with the FBI. And right now, the FBI isn't very happy with the way you keep killing people."

"Fuck the FBI," Silas snarled, snaking his arm around Garcia's neck. He had a wicked looking knife pressed to her belly. "What the hell good are you all anyway?"

"Oh, your tax dollars are very good at teaching us how to shoot to kill," Prentiss replied, her lips twisting into a sneer. "You think we know nothing about you, but we know everything. How your father killed your mother and taught you how to do it for yourself. How you kidnapped your first girl. Even why you dye their hair and change the color of their eyes. We know more about you than you know about yourself. But you made a mistake, didn't you? By obliterating the blonde hair and brown eyes, you took away your own fantasy. And that made you angry, so you sought out more victims. Two years ago, you abducted Penelope Garcia from a motel about three hours from here in Nebraska. It's just too fucking bad for you that she works for the FBI and we're not leaving without her."

Garcia met Prentiss's stare unwaveringly.

"She's a stupid bitch and she deserves whatever comes to her," Silas hissed, tightening his hold. "Aren't you, sweetheart?"

"I'm not your sweetheart," Garcia said, her voice calm.

Prentiss said, "Let her go, Silas. I'm willing to make a deal: you let her go, I don't blow your fucking head off. Make any move to hurt her, and you're going to die. You don't want to die, do you?"

He sneered. "You're just as worthless as she is."

"Believe me, if there wasn't going to be collateral damage, I'd take the shot," Emily ground out between clenched teeth.

Garcia smiled. "I'd never ask you to, Emily," she mouthed, not making a sound.

"This is your last warning, Silas," Prentiss said. "Let Garcia go."

"Promise you'll tell Derek I love him," Garcia said, her voice catching in her throat. "Emily, promise me."

Prentiss nodded once. "I promise."

Garcia went limp in his arms, slipping easily past his grip. She ducked out of the way and grabbed the cast iron skillet, ignoring the pain and sizzling of her flesh as it connected with the side of his head in one swooping motion. She knew that Prentiss wasn't going to take the shot if she was in the way, and as brains and blood slung across the room, Penelope Garcia finally felt like herself again.

He fell atop her, lifeless. Pain seared through her, but it was nothing she couldn't live through; he'd seen to that. She'd never forgive herself for it.

Prentiss holstered her weapon and fell to her knees next to the tangle of body parts. "Penelope –"

"Help," Garcia croaked. "Oh, god, god, help – Emily, help."

Reid emerged from the corridor and helped Prentiss roll the dead Silas Webster off of Garcia. Emily choked back a noise of horrified anger when she saw the knife plunged deep into Garcia's shoulder. "You stupid idiot," she whispered, trying to staunch the flow of blood. "How is this better than getting shot? Reid, get an ambulance – I can't take this out."

"It's on the way," he said. "Ten minutes."

"Morgan needs to meet us at the hospital," Emily reminded him. "He knows her allergies."

Garcia licked her lips and whispered, "He brought a new girl home last night. He was going to kill me today. I had to. My last chance."

"I know," Emily assured her, brushing Garcia's hair out of her face. "You're going to be okay, you hear me? If you think you can just drop back into our lives and disappear again, you have another thing coming. You hear me?"

Garcia nodded once. "You promised," she whispered.

Emily nodded. "I did," she murmured soothingly, "but he knows already."

"He'll blame me," Penelope croaked.

"No way, kiddo," Emily said, shaking her head. "You did what you had to do to survive; if he can't understand that, he has no business being your best friend."

"Love you," Penelope whispered before she closed her eyes and slumped.

"She's still breathing," Prentiss assured Reid. "Call Hotch."

"They're meeting us at the hospital," Reid said. "I already told you that."

"No, you didn't –"

"It's okay if you didn't hear me," Reid said. "She was incredibly brave."

"Incredibly desperate," Emily corrected, wrapping another hand towel around the protruding knife. "Desperation makes people do stupid things. I would've taken the shot if she hadn't moved quite so fast."

Reid looked at the blood and brain spray across the cabinets and shuddered. "Remind me not to piss her off."


	4. Chapter 4

Part four:

Every jostling bump made the pain so much less endurable. The back roads were the fastest route, she knew, but when they dipped and bumped for the thousandth time, Garcia's eyes snapped open in abject panic. White hot needles of agony were ripping through her and it was all she could do not to hyperventilate.

"We're almost there," Emily assured her, patting her hand through layers of gauze. She couldn't articulate how much that simple gesture hurt. "It's going to be okay. You'll be fine once they get you sewn up again."

It was not going to be okay. That was a pipe dream, just like every other delusion that had kept Penelope Garcia alive in the back of her head for two years. Saying it was going to be okay was like casually announcing that Lady Gaga had given up her crazy clothes and was going to start making soul music: inconceivable and absolutely impossible.

Penelope used her left arm with her bandaged hand to try to bang away the oxygen mask. She couldn't breathe.

The medic, the poor cute guy, tried to hold her back, but Reid interrupted. "She's been restrained and tortured for two years," he said. "She's having a panic attack because she feels trapped." The medic nodded and released his hold on her and helped her get the mask off.

Once she steadied her breathing, she looked at Reid and smiled just a little. "Bless you, Reid," she whispered. "You understand."

"I comprehend, but I can't understand," he contradicted. "Morgan is meeting us at the hospital."

Garcia nodded, wincing when they hit a particularly nasty bump in the road that had the ambulance tilting. "Ow… ow –"

"Just try to stay calm," Prentiss said softly. "We've got your back, Garcia."

The ambulance slowed to a halt. Emily and Reid moved out of the way so they could take the gurney out of the back. "See, right here," Emily said, catching up at a run. "Not leaving you any time soon, girly."

They were in the doors and on the way into the ER when Morgan entered her field of vision. "Baby Girl, I am very mad at you," he said. "Reid told me what you did. It was so stupid."

"Stupidly brilliant," Penelope murmured with a smirk. "Burns only hurt a while; getting your skull smashed in with a skillet is permanent."

He laughed, but she could tell he was fighting tears. "She's allergic to codeine, vicodin, and ketamine," he told the doctors. "We found that out the hard way when she got shot a few years ago."

"Getting shot didn't hurt this much," Penelope mumbled. "Don't cry, Hot Stuff. It'll ruin your machismo." She groaned in pain when they moved the towels around the knife. "Fuck, shit, damn," she hissed.

"Stupid," Morgan said very quietly. He brushed a kiss over her temple. "I'm sorry I wasn't there to see you be awesome."

"Should've told Reid to take YouTube footage," she mumbled.

"I'm sorry."

She looked up at him. "You've got nothing to be sorry for, Derek Morgan," she said with as much strength as she could muster. "It's my fault I'm stupidly impulsive. I didn't expect him to stab me in reflex as he died. I mean, seriously, what the hell?"

"We're going to need to put you under a general anesthesia, Miss Garcia," the doctor said. She'd already spaced his name. Not a good sign. She couldn't focus on anything. The pain was overwhelming when they tried to move the knife.

"Baby Girl, they have to put you under," Derek said very quietly, finally getting her attention. "I'm going to go out and wait with the others."

She nodded, feeling the beginnings of a warm, tingly sensation in her extremities that signaled the beginning of the medicine's hold. "Derek," she croaked. "I love you."

He kissed her forehead again and she could feel tears on her skin; hot, wet tears. But if they were hers or his, she didn't know.

"Any word?" JJ asked as she led Rossi and Hotch into the waiting room.

Morgan shrugged, and Reid shook his head. "It shouldn't be much longer, I wouldn't think," Emily said. "They just had to remove the knife and cauterize the wound, and check for broken ribs and do a skin graft on her hands."

"What the hell did this son of a bitch DO to her?" Rossi grunted.

"Just what the profile said he would," Reid said. "Some days, I hate being right."

Morgan rubbed his eyes and sighed. "We need a do-over for today. Shit, for the last three days, even. How the hell could we have been so… blind?"

Hotch said, "We weren't looking for Penelope Garcia. We were looking for future victims and bodies. We had no way of knowing that the cases were connected in any way."

"Yeah, if that's supposed to make me feel better about not being able to pick my Baby Girl out of a lineup, it's not working," Derek grumbled.

"He starved her, forced her to wear colored contacts, dyed her hair, and modified her behavior to the point that Penelope Garcia no longer existed," Reid said. "You can't blame yourself. None of us can. And she'll recover from the physical trauma, eventually."

"What do you think is going to happen with the pregnancy?" Emily asked. "I know so many victims who couldn't handle the reminder of their –"

"We can't speculate on that," Rossi said, holding his hand up in the air. "That's something that Garcia is going to have to come to terms with on her own. She has options. As long as she considers everything and makes a decision that is good for her, we have to be supportive. There is no option for us in this situation but to help her. She's just as broken as the rest of us are; she was torn from her family and forced to submit to a psychopathic killer, for god's sake. Anything we've been through in the last two years is insignificant compared to that."

JJ nodded. "You're absolutely right," she said.

Hotch nodded and Reid and Prentiss signaled their agreement as well. Everyone looked over at Morgan.

He threw his hands up in the air. "What do you want from me?" Derek asked. "Do you think I don't know all of that? Do you think I don't understand what this has done to her? Because I think I know better than the rest of you do."

"Someone needs to take care of her," JJ pointed out.

"I suppose I'm the speed dial for that?" Derek asked sarcastically. "Like it's not enough that I was left in charge of executing her living will, or taking care of her car payment and buying a house when her lease ran out and all of her shit overran my apartment?"

Emily burst out laughing. "I remember when the trolls were watching you from the toilet tank," she spluttered. "And you called me, thinking you were being haunted by Penelope and it was just Reid fucking with you and moving the troll dolls from the medicine cabinet!"

"Oh, c'mon, are you still holding that against me?" Derek asked, chuckling.

"What about when you broke the Super8 projector?" JJ asked. "And we spent all day on eBay trying to find a new one."

"You care about her," Rossi said. "She trusts you to take care of things."

Morgan ran his hand over his bald head and sighed. "After what's happened to her, how can she trust anyone again?"

"She fought like hell to get back to us," Emily said softly. "She trusted us implicitly; she trusted me with her life back there, and I almost took the shot just to get her the hell out of there. You should've seen her eyes, Morgan: she knew we'd come to save her, but she had to find a way back to herself. I still don't know how she managed to move that fast."

Reid reached out and put his hand on Morgan's shoulder. "We trust you to help her," he said. "Or we wouldn't ask you to."

Derek frowned and put his head in his hands. For two years, he'd been furious with himself for letting the unsub take her out from under his nose. For two years, he'd blamed himself for everything. Every dead end, every cold trail, was his fault, and he'd grown more reckless by the day.

When he went home, everything that was hers was in his space, crowding him, reminding him of everything that had been lost. He had her cellphone in the house, and more than once, he'd called it just to hear her voice again. Or because he'd forgotten that she wouldn't pick up and sass him with that smart mouth of hers.

Finally, to preserve his sanity, he'd told himself that she was dead and he was a goddamn fool for believing anything else. It was the only way he could survive without her. And now, she was alive and if not well, at least she was in the same building with people who could help her.

He didn't feel qualified to do that anymore.

"Derek," JJ murmured, "she's really here and she needs us more than ever."

He looked up and nodded. "I'll do what I can," he promised. "But I'm not a miracle worker."

"We aren't asking you to be," Hotch said firmly. "I should go call Strauss before she gets word of what's going on."

"I need to write a statement for the press," JJ said with a sigh. "I really think we should wait until we know the conditions of both Garcia and Shandra Hodges before we go to the press, though. It'll be the first question otherwise."

"Right," Hotch said. "Let me know if they tell you anything new while I'm on with Strauss."

Everybody wandered out of the room till it was just Morgan and Prentiss.

He pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. "I can't believe I couldn't see it was her," he muttered. "I'm never going to forgive myself for that."

"She's so skinny; I've never seen her without the curves," Emily countered. "None of us saw it, Derek. But, god, I'm so glad it was her. You have no idea. Really, you don't. And maybe it's selfish of me, but all I could think about was being able to take her out for girl's night again and bitch about the dicks we work with. And how much I missed the good days."

Derek nodded and smiled a little. "I want to go back to the motel and get her Fuzzie bear," he said. "Can you believe I tuck him into my go bag just so I remember her?"

"You're going to have to give him back," Prentiss said with a smile.

"I will," Derek said.

"Did you teach her any self-defense tricks?" Emily asked, stretching in her chair a little.

"She wouldn't let me," he said, shaking his head. "She only had the basic training you have to have to work for the tech pool."

"I still can't get over how she did that; she took Silas Webster out like she'd been planning it for a long time."

"She had plenty of time to refine a plan," he pointed out, only slightly bitterly. "And she's damn lucky she didn't get herself killed anyway."

"Oh, Miss Garcia is stronger than any of you know," Doctor Granger said with a smile as he came into the waiting room. "She's going to be okay, at least physically. Emotionally, I'll leave up to the FBI psychiatrists. Her hands will probably take the longest to heal, and we have some special instructions for their treatment, but the stab wound was clean and easy to cauterize. She's sleeping off the anesthetic now. You can see her if you want."

Derek looked at Emily, who tilted her head toward the door with a tiny smirk on her lips. "Your goddess of all things good is calling you, Derek," she teased. "Better go worship."

He took a deep breath and stood up. Duty called; his guilty conscience would have to wait to be placated.


	5. Chapter 5

Part five:

When she finally opened her eyes, the world was a blur of indistinct colors and shapes. The hospital staff must have taken out the contacts; she only slightly missed the itchy, scratchy lenses. The mess was too much for her to handle, so she closed her eyes again. She'd learned the hard way how to see by hearing when she didn't want Silas to know she was keeping tabs on what he was doing.

Someone was in the room with her, and they weren't very comfortable; they were asleep, but they kept shifting around. She heard a low noise and felt a tiny twitch of a smile form at her lips: Derek Morgan. He didn't snore, but there were times when he almost started to; it was just that noise. No one else made it.

She was glad he was there, but…

She moved slightly, trying to get to the nurse's call button, but was blocked by the fact that her hands were heavily bandaged and she couldn't move her fingers. "Well, shit," she muttered. Derek shifted and inhaled deeply, signaling that she'd disturbed him into wakefulness. "Fuck," Penelope grunted, trying again for the button.

"What you need?" Derek asked.

"Water. Painkillers. Take your pick," she muttered, swallowing. She opened her eyes and he was just a tall blur. "Glasses. I need my glasses."

"That I can help with," he said. He rifled through a bag and then he was in her face, sliding glasses onto her nose. The world came into focus with a clarity that made her nauseated after the fuzziness. "There's my girl," Derek said with a sleepy smirk. "How do you feel?"

"Like I need water," she reminded him softly. "But you can call a nurse and go back to sleep. I'm sorry I woke you up – I just can't hit the stupid button."

"No, it's okay," he said, pouring water from a horrible plastic pitcher into a worse-looking plastic cup. "I wasn't really sleeping anyway."

"Liar," she accused with a smile. He held the cup to her lips, letting her drink till she was done. "Thanks."

He nodded. "No problem." Derek pulled his chair closer to her bedside. "So, do you want to know the damage recovery scenario?"

She chuckled, feeling her ribcage ache in response. "Nah, I know I'm a mess; I'll just let the professionals make me normal again," she murmured. "How are you holding up? I know this isn't the easiest thing in the world for you, either."

He frowned. "I'll live."

"Have they checked on the baby yet? Did they tell you anything?" Penelope asked suddenly when she felt the baby rolling around.

"You're just about six months in and aside from you needing to eat a damn lot of food, they said that she's going to be just fine."

"She? It's a girl?" Penelope asked, her eyes clouding over with tears. A girl would have meant even more certain death: Silas wanted a boy. "I'm happy," she said, blinking till the tears actually fell. "I just – I need to eat more?" she said, changing the subject. "I can do that – I could eat a whole side of pork about now. I haven't had more than oatmeal and a little fruit here and there in a long time. I don't even know how long I was gone."

"Two years, four months and six days," Derek replied.

She blinked. "Uh… okay."

He shrugged. "I started counting and didn't stop till yesterday."

"Well, I'm not going anywhere," Garcia said firmly. "I don't think I could if I tried: I'm hooked up to this damn catheter."

He chuckled and said, "You look like crap."

"I feel like crap, thanks for noticing," she said chipperly. "I don't even know what color my hair is, I haven't worn makeup in over two years, and I think I weigh like 100 lbs. or some ridiculousness. It's time for a makeover." She paused, just noticing something. "Hey, these are my spare glasses from the Lair – why do you have them?"

He shrugged. "Strauss had someone take over for you and made me take your stuff home. Your glasses have been living in my go bag for a while," he admitted. "Kind of like Fuzzie Bear." He dug in the bag for a second, and then he held up a small, well-worn teddy bear. "They remind me of you, and remind me to look for the good in things when I'm in the field."

"Fuzzie!" Penelope squealed softly as Derek laid the bear to rest between her side and her arm. "You kept him safe?" she asked.

"No bulletholes for that bear," Derek promised, smiling. "It's good to see you smile."

She wasn't just smiling: she was beaming. "I'm happy," she said. "Sore and exhausted, but very, very happy. I've got my baby girl, and my teddy bear, and my Hot Stuff. All I need now is a vein of morphine and a computer and the world will be right."

"No morphine," Derek said, shaking his head. "You get Tylenol."

"Failsauce," Penelope pouted. "Why?"

"Because you're pregnant."

"Ah, yeah, well – " She paused and looked down at her belly. "Good enough reason. So I've got three months to be ready for her to pop, then? I've got to find somewhere to live, a job, get some money flowing so I can take care of her…"

"Right now, you need to relax and get some rest," Derek said firmly. "Strauss will be coming to talk to you in a couple of hours, and the BAU is officially off the case."

"Oh," Penelope said with a frown. "Because of me?"

He nodded. "But don't blame yourself for that; you did a good job, Baby Girl." He reached over and adjusted her glasses slightly, as they'd started to slide on her nose. "I don't want you to feel like you need to explain any of this to me right now; it's too fresh."

"Now's the best time," Penelope said. "I don't think you want to hear about it from everyone else but me."

Derek frowned at her again. "You need to rest."

"Don't treat me like I'm other people," she snapped. "I've rested. I'm fine. I don't want to go back to sleep." Her feathers were getting ruffled; being told what to do was never going to work again. Silas had broken her that way – she was going full-on anarchist from now on. No one, NO MAN, was ever going to treat her that way again. "What are you looking at?" she muttered.

"I'm sorry."

She wrinkled her nose. "I need to talk. I'm tired of internalizing." She knew that when she spoke in official profiling terms, he'd listen. Till then, she was just Penelope Garcia, who needed to talk; now she was Penelope Garcia, who needed to be serious and talk about serious things. "I haven't had anyone to talk to; I don't know if I could have unloaded anyway."

"You're not fine, are you?" he asked.

"Hell no, but I can make everyone else think I'll be okay," she said flippantly. "I'll be fine when I can sleep on my own. Till then, whatever." She waved her bandaged hand dismissively. "And I need to tell this to someone before Erin Strauss tears me to shreds."

Derek sighed and nodded. "Okay," he said. "Where do you want to start? The abduction?"

Penelope shook her head hard enough she saw stars. "NO."

"Okay."

"The first thing I remember being in that house was the woman that fed me," she said, frowning. "She took care of me for the first couple of days, and then she was gone. She told me her name was Erin and that I was stronger than she was and would last longer. I didn't know what she meant, but I knew when he took me out of the chains and took me upstairs that she was dead. He buried her in the basement. With the others. I'm sure I would've wound up there, too."

She felt numb, like drawing on the memories wasn't quite real. Her time perspective had been skewed for so long that she didn't remember the order things happened; some witness, she scolded herself.

"He dyed my hair every week, and he took my glasses and had special contacts made," she said. "And made me stop eating for a while, till I got sick. Then it was oatmeal and a little bit of fruit, and that's all I've eaten for a long time. I tried to sneak food at the diner, but he broke my wrist when he caught me."

Derek inhaled sharply. "Pen-"

She glared at him. "No, you don't get to talk," she said firmly. "This is important."

"Yes, but –"

"When the rapes started, he did it at knifepoint, like I was going to try something," she said, cutting him off. "But then he relaxed and let me pretend that I liked what he was doing. He let his guard down and I tried to kill myself. Which led to me being tied up at night. He didn't stop forcing the sex, but he stopped caring that I was trapped and hurting. When E.J. was born, he couldn't stand that she cried all night long, and he…" She stopped talking, trying to swallow back the raw emotion that had choked her. "He made me bury her. After he –" She bit her lip. "God damn it, I suck at this," she whispered.

"It's hard to talk about things like this," Derek said very quietly.

"I had two miscarriages," she said after a moment of composure. "And then he let me work at the diner because I was getting restless and angry again. He knew if he didn't do something, I was going to take away his chance to kill me. So I worked in the kitchen during the day and he made me bury his victims at night. And I found out I was pregnant again and I hoped and prayed that the baby would be okay. The baby kept me alive till I could kill the asshole. I don't know. I can't talk about this anymore. I have too many reasons to be mad at myself; I don't want to be angry anymore. I want to be happy." Penelope looked at Derek, wanting his validation. She needed him to know that she was trying to be strong for the right reasons; not because she was denying what had happened, but because she knew it had shaped her into a Penelope Garcia she didn't recognize as herself.

She wanted to feel safe. She wanted to be happy. She wanted things to be normal again. She never wanted to look at her food and wonder if she was going to be sick again. She didn't want to look in a mirror and see someone that wasn't her looking back again. The only time she'd seen herself in a mirror during her captivity, she'd snapped and broken it and tried to kill herself. She never wanted to relive that moment again in her life. She wanted to move on and live the life she'd fought so hard to keep going. It wasn't going to be easy; she would never deny that, especially to herself. But she was going to do her damnedest to do it.

He still hadn't looked up. His head was in his hands.

"Derek?"

"How can you just…"

"I'm not a victim," Penelope said firmly. "Don't you dare make me into a victim and invalidate the fact that I survived. Out of a couple hundred women, I was the one that fucking SURVIVED, Derek Morgan. I'm not going to forget that. Ever."

"How can you just sit there and talk about it like its cut and dried?" he asked, finally raising his head. The hurt was painted all over his face from the anger in his eyes to the twitch under his eye. "Like he didn't hurt you every day?"

"Because I rehearsed in my head exactly what I'd tell the FBI," she said. "It made it easier to deal with the day to day abuse. The big things hurt, though: E.J. needs a real grave in a real cemetery so I can see her and tell her I'm sorry and it's my fault. All of this is my fault."

"No, Baby Girl, it's not your fault," Derek said firmly. "Believe me. It can't be your fault when it's mine."

"What?" she snorted. "Don't be ridiculous. How the hell is it your fault?"

"I didn't check on you."

"It's not your fault," she said firmly. "I'm not going to tell you how many times you saved my life, Pretty Boy. Every time I thought about you, I held on tooth and nail. And then I saw you in the diner and I knew it was going to be okay. My family came to get me."

He shook his head. "I'm angry –"

She somehow managed to grab the bedpan off the bedstand and chucked it at his head. It fell way short, to the point it just kind of clattered on the floor. He cracked a tiny smile, but it vanished. "Don't you dare," she said firmly. "You can't blame yourself."

Derek sighed. "I pretended you were dead so I could move on, and then here you are. I'm angry at myself for not taking care of you. I promised."

"Sometimes, you just can't keep a promise," Penelope said. "I promised I was going to save myself every day in that hellhole."

"You did save yourself."

She smiled sadly. "Not yet," she denied. "I'm still lost. I don't think I'm ever going to save myself. I'm alive, but I'm not me anymore."

"You will be."

She just shook her head; he'd probably never understand that part of Penelope Garcia was dead and not coming back. She could never be who she was before. She had to start all over again.

But she had her baby girl, her Fuzzie bear, her glasses, and Derek Morgan.

They were her weapons, and she was armed to the teeth.

She'd survived.


	6. Chapter 6

Part six:

"They've been in there for two hours," Derek muttered, pacing. "The hell is Strauss doing? She knows Penelope isn't going to be fit for duty."

Hotch shrugged his shoulders. "She's probably trying to establish a timeline and a psychological baseline for Penelope's current condition."

"The girl's current condition is in pain and scared to death," Morgan snapped. "She still hasn't eaten anything: she looked at the Jell-o like it was going to bite."

"It's Jell-o. Nothing that willingly jiggles needs to be eaten for nutritional value," Hotch said with a quirk of a grin. "She'll be okay. I'm putting you on leave for a month. That should be long enough for her to be released from the hospital and get her settled in somewhere."

"Somewhere?" Morgan said, raising an eyebrow. "She's not leaving my sight till I know she can take care of herself again. She's going to my place."

"Does she know that you have her things?"

"I don't know," Derek admitted. "The living will said to sell everything but the photos and the Super8, but I couldn't do it. It was too hard to let go."

"I can't fault you for that," Hotch said quietly. "I still have some of Hayley's clothes. When you love someone so much, you'll cling to anything to keep them with you somehow."

The door opened and Strauss stepped through before shutting it again. "She's not in any condition to be of use to the Bureau for a long time: I'm going to put her on medical leave for a year, medical expenses covered. She's given me locations to dig for bodies and we're going to send your team back to Quantico to look over new cases."

"Morgan is staying with Garcia," Hotch said. "He's on leave for a month, starting tomorrow."

Strauss nodded and looked Morgan up and down. "I'm not sure you'll be able to handle when she loses it," she said coldly. "Just try not to make her feel worse than she already does. Her scars aren't all visible."

"I know that," Morgan muttered.

"She will have to submit to monthly psychological evaluations," Strauss continued. "Only when I'm satisfied that she's ready will she be allowed to return to the BAU. She might go back to work in the tech pool before that, but no murder cases: petty theft, white collar, that kind of a thing."

Hotch nodded. "I understand," he agreed. "I trust Agent Morgan's ability to care for Garcia. He won't allow anything else to happen to her."

Strauss straightened her shoulders and looked down her nose at him. "I should hope not: the woman has already given her all for her job and her friends, and it's time she just relaxed for a while. She's decided to keep the child, by the way, in case she hadn't made her intentions clear to either of you."

"Yes," Hotch said, "she mentioned it."

Strauss glanced at Morgan. "You don't agree with her decision?" she inquired.

"I don't agree with a lot of things about this," Morgan said, "but I'm not going to put a wedge in things by being anything but supportive."

"Pray tell, Agent Morgan, what else do you not agree with?" Strauss asked frostily. "Because I'd like to know if you'll be undermining my authority again in the immediate future."

"I don't agree with you making plans for her return to the FBI; who's to say she's going to want that at all in a year?"

"Garcia wants it," Strauss said. "It was the first thing she was insistent on after making her statement for the records. That she wants to come back."

"A year is a long time," Hotch pointed out, stepping between Morgan and Strauss. "There's plenty of time to discuss this later. Morgan, we're wheels up in an hour: you'll take care of her?"

Morgan nodded, still regarding Strauss with a sullen scowl. She had no right to dangle carrots in front of Penelope when there was a chance she'd never be ready to go back to a world of crime's dirty underbelly. It was indecent and manipulative.

"If you're going to be her caretaker for the time being, Agent Morgan, you had better start putting your patient first," Strauss said once Hotch left. "Your own interests and those of the Bureau are secondary to her recovery. Just remember that." She turned on her heels and retreated from the scene.

Morgan took a deep breath and went back into Penelope's room.

"Does your mother know we're coming?" Penelope asked, glancing down at her still-bandaged hands. Two weeks and she'd barely started regaining feeling in her fingertips. It was going to make typing much more difficult. Not that she'd be able to catch up with the advances in technology any time soon; she'd become a dinosaur in her absence.

"Of course," Derek replied. "She's thrilled to have you visit."

"Not you?" Penelope asked, throwing him a side-long glance.

He smiled and rubbed her arm. "Silly girl, my Mama's always thrilled to have me visit," he murmured. "But you're her guest of honor this time. I'm only going to be there a couple of days, though; she's going to take care of you so I can go home and take care of a few things."

"You're just going to leave me with your mom?" Penelope asked, raising an eyebrow. "What if she hates me for being needy?"

"For one thing, she already loves you, and for another, you aren't needy, Baby Girl."

"And what's so important you can't take care of it by phone?" she asked worriedly. Derek hadn't left her side since she'd been admitted to the hospital; if he left, it would be like pulling a rug out from under her while she was in stilettos.

He nudged her and said, "Mama, you're nosy."

"We don't have secrets anymore," she reminded him. She'd finally given in to his patience and given up a piece of herself to tell him every grisly, raw detail of her captivity. He'd been horrified by the things she'd endured, but was nothing but supportive. And he'd reciprocated by telling her everything he'd done in her absence. Or, so she thought.

"Oh, I've still got a couple of surprises for you," he teased. "Not secrets; just surprises."

She used what little dexterity she had in her left hand to hold his as the plane landed. "I hope they don't take long," she murmured. "No doctor is going to let me fly soon, and I don't want to overstay my welcome at the House of Morgan, Chicago Edition."

Her heart beat a crazy tattoo in her chest, nervous, anxious, worried, as they got their bags and headed to Mrs. Morgan's. "I always wanted to meet your mom," Penelope said, "but not like this."

"How did you want to meet her?" Derek asked softly.

"I don't know – maybe at Christmastime?" Penelope said very quietly.

"Christmas is coming soon enough," he reminded her with a smile. "Only a month and a half."

"Yeah, but –"

"It doesn't matter how you show up," Derek said, "what matters is that you showed up at all." He pulled to a stop in front of a row of houses and pointed. "We're here."

The anxiousness turned into heartburn in the span of those two words. The baby turned a somersault and kicked her in the ribs. "Oof," Penelope muttered. "Apparently, smart-ass here agrees with you."

Derek smirked. "She's gonna be just like her Mama," he teased, reaching over to release her seatbelt. She was amazed at how humbly he cared for her, just like it was the most natural thing in the world to do the little things that she couldn't. She'd been so embarrassed until she could handle going to the bathroom by herself, but he'd been nothing but loving and supportive.

It wasn't like she had anything he hadn't seen before.

But this was a different kind of embarrassment: she'd never met Fran Morgan face to face, but she was going to have to depend on the woman's kindness and compassion for as long as Derek was absent and doing his secret things. It was an untenable position, but she couldn't offer her trust: that part of her was forever broken. She didn't even fully trust Derek Morgan anymore. She knew he wouldn't hurt her on purpose, but she couldn't trust him to not to do it accidentally.

"I hope she's not going to be like me," Penelope grunted as he helped her gently out of the car. "She needs some hope in life."

Derek's hand strayed to rub her belly fondly through her coat. "Oh, don't worry about that," he said. "She's going to grow up in a sea of love."

The assurance was enough to make Penelope tear up again. "Stop making me cry," she ordered. "And stop touching my belly. I'm going to have to beat people off soon: don't be the first victim."

He chuckled. "C'mon, Silly Girl," Derek said. "Time to meet the in-laws."

She felt light headed as they navigated the icy sidewalk, but he kept her upright when she slipped. Fran had the door open before they'd made it halfway, and the smile on her lips was welcoming. "Get in here before you freeze," Fran ordered. "Silly boy, bringing your Baby Girl home when it's this cold out; for shame."

Derek helped Penelope inside and kissed her cheek. "She's plenty warm, Mama; I made sure to get a good coat for her," he assured his mother.

Fran rolled her eyes. "Derek, that's not what I meant." She turned to appraise Penelope. "Are you hungry?" she asked. "I'm Fran, by the way."

Penelope smiled. "I see where he gets it," she said vaguely as her stomach abruptly stopped roiling with anxiety.

"His charming personality or the mother hen thing?" Fran shot back. "Don't just stand there, Derek: take off her coat."

Derek complied with a little smile. "Mama, you're bossin' your baby boy around already?" he asked in an amused tone.

"It's a wonder you can stand letting him take care of you," Fran said to Penelope with a smirk. "He's kind of a –"

"Hey, Mama, play nice," Derek interjected with a scowl.

"He's been great," Penelope said, smiling at him. "Better than I could've hoped for."

"Are you hungry?" Fran repeated.

"I had a snack on the –"

"You didn't eat breakfast," Derek said.

"I'm not really hungry," Penelope said. Her stomach chose that moment to rumble ingraciously.

"Maybe you aren't, but the little one clearly is," Fran said, chuckling. "I made mango-lentil stew."

Penelope sighed. "I'm –"

"Not eating enough," Fran supplied. "You're practically skin and bones, little girl."

"I don't want Derek to have to drop everything and feed me because I can't do it myself!" Penelope exploded. "It's not fair to him!" She couldn't stop the words from tripping off her lips. "It's not fair that he decided he has to take care of me. It's not fair that he has to feed me and help me get dressed and undressed and –"

"Baby Girl," Derek said, "I volunteered for the job. It's okay."

"No, it's not okay!" She denied, shaking her head. "It's not okay."

"Let's get some lunch and we'll talk later," he murmured.

"I'm not hungry," she denied again. The baby flip-flopped and she closed her eyes. "What, you, too?" she asked, stroking her belly. "You're all ganging up on me," she accused, glaring at Derek.

"Damn straight, Princess," Derek said. "You're still fifty pounds lighter than the doctors would like."

She sighed. It felt like all she did was drink nutritional boosters and eat. Two weeks of that non-stop for a lousy five pounds. "Derek, stop trying to fix me," Penelope said. "Please. You can't do it. I'm tired of eating and watching TV and not doing anything. I want coffee and cheesecake and things that I know I can't have, and I'm sick of protein shakes and rabbit food."

He studied her for a long moment. "Well…"

"Cheetos and Mountain Dew."

He sighed and rolled his eyes. "I'll go get some, but only if you let Mama feed you some soup," he compromised with amazing dignity, considering what she was asking.

She sighed. "Okay, fine," Penelope agreed finally. "Bring on the rabbit food."

She was surprised to find that Fran was just as patient as Derek was, and a much better cook. The stew was hearty, full of mango, lentils, rice, and spices: not the same mess the hospital had been claiming was nutritious enough for her to survive on. She ate three bowls' worth of stew in the time it took Derek to get the junk food: he looked more than satisfied with her accomplishment as he tucked into his own bowl of soup.

"How's my Baby Girl?" he asked later, when they'd made themselves comfortable on the couch. He found CNN on the TV and left it running quietly. "Still frustrated?"

"Sleepy, full of delicious soup, and surprisingly happy," she murmured, curling up against him, closing her eyes.

"Baby, don't ever think that you're putting me out," he said very softly. "I'm here to help whenever you need it. I promised, remember?"

"Yeah, but that was before," she reminded him, yawning. "Sorry, I'm a little –"

He kissed her forehead. "Get some rest," he whispered. "Baby Girl's baby girl needs a nap."

She chuckled. "Baby Girl's baby girl needs a name," she murmured.

"Princess," Derek said, chuckling.

"A real name," Penelope said, shoving him in the ribs and smiling. She liked this; sitting with him, sleepy and happy. Too bad it couldn't last forever.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, brakes and back up that truck," Derek said. Penelope complied sheepishly. "Let me look at you," he ordered, turning her around with a smile.

She felt her cheeks betray her, flushing what had to be a bright crimson. "I don't know if I like it," she admitted.

"I do," he replied with a smile, reaching up to tousle her much shorter, spiky blonde hair. "But why did it take six hours?"

"They had to bleach all the black dye out," Penelope sighed. "My poor hair was all crispy, so I had them cut it off so I can start all over again."

"You look hot," he said with a smirk. "How about some lunch, and don't say you aren't hungry, 'cause Mama had me pick up a pizza."

The idea of pepperoni had her feeling queasy in a split second. "I'm not – I can't do pizza, Hot Stuff. Princess here doesn't like it," she admitted. It felt good not to lie and say she wasn't hungry. It was a tiny change that she was forcing herself to make. She was going to win.

"So you and I can go out and grab something," he replied.

"It's cold," Penelope protested. She sighed and tucked herself into his arms. "Aren't you tired of me yet?" she asked. "I'm whiny and needy and you don't even blink an eye. You think it's cute."

He grinned. "Yeah, I do – kind of like how you snuck across the hall into my room last night even though I told you that you didn't need to sneak around."

"I got cold," she sighed. "Everyone needs a best friend sometimes."

He kissed the top of her head. "Maybe Mom has some stuff in the fridge for sandwiches?" he suggested.

"Sounds good." She walked with him into the kitchen. "When are you going back to Quantico?" she asked very quietly.

"Tomorrow," he replied, opening the fridge door and looking around. He eventually came out with an armload of stuff. "Whatcha want, Baby Girl?"

"Pickles, tomatoes, mustard and turkey," she replied. "Lots of pickles and mustard."

"You never used to like mustard," he said.

"I don't: Princess Garcia does," she chuckled. "It's a sacrifice I'm willing to make." She paused. "I was thinking about calling Kevin Lynch today."

He stopped slathering mustard on the bun and looked at her. "Baby Girl, you know that's a world of hurt you just don't want," he reminded her.

"Look, I know he's married now, and that… he didn't wait as long as you did to write me off, but he deserves to know that I'm okay," she sighed. "I know he's happier without me in his life, and I'm okay with that. But he's still…" Penelope stopped talking and sighed. She was silent for a long moment, then said, "All the time I was there, I didn't think of him. I thought about you coming to save me: it never occurred to me that he might do that. I was a bad girlfriend."

"No," Derek said, laying out a heavy layer of pickles on the bread and mustard. "You were just listening to your instincts. Don't worry about it, and don't worry about him now."

She opened her mouth to say something else, but the words stuck in her throat. She knew if she said them, he wouldn't reciprocate. He was taking care of her, but she couldn't take advantage of him like that. "You're right," she finally said.

"Voila," Derek pronounced, turning around with a perfect sandwich on a plate in his hands. "Now, it's time for you to eat."

She was tired of eating all the time.


	7. Chapter 7

Part seven:

He was waiting for her at the baggage claim, and she flew into his arms. It was pathetically sad how much she missed him after a week. She'd gotten out of her hand bandages, but relearning simple tasks had a learning curve, and she wanted Derek's reinforcement.

"Baby, I missed you, too," Derek assured her with a chuckle. "Let's get your stuff and go home."

"I've only got the one bag," she said. "Your mom wanted to take me shopping, but I wasn't about to spend someone else's money."

He smiled. "Silly girl, you've been spending my money."

"That's different," she retorted, letting him grab her bag from the carousel. "You volunteered, and you've been sweet about it."

"You look better," he said as he looked her up and down. "Beautiful, sexy, much more like yourself now."

"I feel better," Penelope agreed. "Your mom took good care of me." She held up her hands and beamed at him. "And I can wipe my own tushie now," she teased, practically dancing with excitement. "I even ate a little bag of chips on the plane."

His smile was as big as hers. That was a hell of a sign that things were on the right track. "C'mon, Baby Girl, let's go home," he insisted. "I've got a surprise for you."

"A welcome home party?" she asked.

"Even better," he promised.

"Well, I have a surprise for you," she retorted. "I finally decided what to name her."

"Really?" he asked with a smile.

"Yeah," she replied. "Charlotte. After my mom. Charlotte Francis Garcia. I told your mom I wanted to use her name and she started crying like I was giving her the best present ever."

Derek's smile faded. "She's mad at me for not giving her grandchildren, so she'll take what she can get," he said.

"I want Fran to be…" Penelope stopped talking and rubbed her belly nervously. "Nevermind."

"Spit it out," he said.

"No, because you'll be bratty about it," she sighed.

"You want Fran to be what?" Derek asked.

"I want her to be Charlotte's grandmother – obviously, not by blood, but…" She shut up and closed her eyes, waiting for what she thought was an inevitable storm. When nothing happened, she looked over at him. "Derek?"

"I think that's sweet and Mama will appreciate it," he said.

"Really?" The unspoken implication in her request was what had her trapped somewhere between wanting and hoping. She didn't dare ask him, but she knew she had to. She couldn't live without him again.

"Really," Derek said. A muscle in his jaw twinged.

"Derek, I –"

"How was the flight?" he asked, changing the subject completely.

She answered the question, but the car fell silent after that, aside from the radio.

There was too much to say and too much left unsaid. They had a completely different dynamic now. The flirtatious teasing had been replaced with grounded, adult conversation.

She couldn't garner the courage to encourage the X-rated conversations again. She still felt vulnerable, and maybe that would never go away. But it was Derek…

They arrived, and she looked out the window. "This is your place?" she asked, blinking.

"Damn straight," he said with a smile. He hit the remote and the garage door opened, revealing Esther as he drove in and parked. "Welcome home, Penelope."

She got out of the car and wandered aimlessly around his house, her shoulders shaking with silent tears. She saw things she didn't even remember having in her possession scattered around everywhere. Her dolls, her pens, the Super8 projector… She stopped in the master bedroom and full-on lost her shit. "Oh my god," she sobbed.

"Shh, it's okay," he whispered, pulling her into his arms. "I want you to be happy, Penelope. No more tears."

"This can't be for me," she whimpered. "You did this? You came home to do this?"

He smiled. "No, I came home to decorate the nursery, Silly Girl, but you haven't gotten that far yet."

"You did this all for me?" she asked, looking up at him with tears streaming down her cheeks.

"No," he finally admitted, "I did it for me. While you were gone. I had all your stuff."

"This is your room?" she asked, looking around. "Shit, I'm sorry, I didn't –"

"It's ours now," he promised. "No more sneaking around, Baby Girl."

"Derek…"

"Hot Mama, listen to me. Every time someone puts us in separate rooms, you wait till they fall asleep and then you haul your sexy butt into my bed. I'm putting my foot down: it's our bed or nothing."

She blushed and bit her lip. "Okay, then," she agreed.

"Now come see Charlotte's room," he said, firmly guiding her across the hall.

"OH!" she cried upon seeing the room in hues of green and yellow. "Derek –"

"No pink was good enough," he said. "Yellow for sunshine and green for serenity. She's going to need all the help she can get."

Penelope turned around and kissed him before she scampered across the room and started looking at all of the clothes and diapers and baby things that he'd picked out. "Oh, Derek, you didn't have to do this!" she cried.

He smiled. "Yeah, well, I figured you're going to need all the help you can get, too," he commented not at all snidely. "A baby is a big responsibility and a lot of work."

"You make it sound like I didn't already know that," she replied, walking swiftly back him in order to poke him in the chest. "I'll have you know, buster, that I'm very aware of those precious facts of yours, and I'm doing my best already."

"So let's go get some lunch," he suggested.

She rolled her eyes. "You do realize I've put on fifteen pounds since I got out of the hospital, right?"

He nodded and smirked. "Forty to go," he reminded her.

She groaned. "You're going to kill me with food."

"We've got a full cupboard of –"

"Any Cinnamon Toast Crunch?" she asked. "I could eat a whole box of that."

He'd take what he could. "Of course," he said. "Let's go down and get some lunch."

A few minutes later, she was plowing through a bowl of cereal and he was settling in with a sandwich. He'd just taken a bite when she said, "I still haven't told you why I'm keeping Charlotte."

He shrugged. "I figured I didn't really need to know. It was your choice."

A tiny sad smile crept onto her lips. "It's because she's all I'll have left of my Mom. It's just me and any kids I'd have. That's all I've got, Derek. I'd fight to the death for it."

"You almost did," he pointed out.

She scowled. "Well, you know what? It takes a miracle to forgive, but you never forget. I've made my peace with what happened, but it doesn't stop hurting. But this little girl? She's not his. She's MINE. And I'm forgiving the rest because I'll have HER. Everything happens for a reason, and if it doesn't, why am I here, eating sugar-coated crack?"

"Because you're stronger than you look," Derek said.

"Damn," she muttered.

"What?"

"My cereal's soggy."

He couldn't help it: he started cracking up.

"Hey, it's not funny!" Penelope protested. "It's a crime against humanity!"

"Baby Girl, don't ever change," he said, still smiling as she glared daggers at him.

"Don't look at me like that," she muttered.

"Like what?"

"Like THAT."

"Baby Girl, this is my face," he reminded her.

"Well, then, your face makes me horny," she grumbled. "So stop looking at me."

He dropped his sandwich.

"Oh, don't look so damn shocked," she sighed, stirring her soggy cereal. "I'm pregnant and horny and I'm really not dead yet, so of course you make me think all kinds of dirty things. Don't read anything into it."

He cleared his throat. "Am I going to have to sleep on the couch?"

She glared at him again. "No."

"So you can guarantee that you're not going to molest me in my sleep?" he teased.

"Derek Morgan, I'd be across the table and molesting you right now if I didn't have a voice in the back of my head reminding me that men are awful," she muttered. "I suppose you threw out my drawer full of sex toys?"

He snickered. "Oh, no, Princess, you're not going there."

"Look, Hot Stuff, I am not going to ruin whatever… this is," she said firmly, "by fucking you like one of your floozies."

He was still smiling at her and it was sending waves of sick, wrong heat through her body, all of them coming to rest in her groin. Damn it. Men. So full of themselves and their appeal. Alas, she was wanting more than sex appeal. She wanted Derek Morgan, and for all the wrong reasons.

"I haven't had a floozy in a while," he teased her.

"Don't – Derek Morgan – don't encourage me!" she groaned.

"It's a perfectly natural hormone thing," he assured her. "I asked JJ and –"

She groaned and let her head hit the tabletop. "Oh, for fuck's sake, why did you –"

"Say that again," he said.

"What?"

"Say 'fuck' again," he instructed.

His voice was like silk and velvet, his tone masterful but with a hint of amused lust hidden away. She almost did exactly what he said, but instead lifted her head and glared at him again. "No."

"Say it," he repeated.

"I will not."

"I'll make you a deal."

Her glare turned into a glower and she pursed her lips together. "What?"

"If you need me, for things, you come to me. You don't go anywhere else or call some random guy," he instructed. "And in return, I'll show you a damn good time."

"Derek Morgan –"

"Hey, I'm supposed to be helping you out, remember?" he said, holding his hands up in surrender. "Besides, I'm surprised this hasn't… come up… before now."

Her heart beat faster at the pun. She needed to stop thinking about this before she lost control and attacked him. Absence not only made her heart grow fonder, it made it that much harder not to drag him to bed and take advantage of him. BEST FRIEND, she reminded herself, NOT FUCK BUDDY.

She didn't realize she'd said it aloud until she saw the look on his face. He excused himself from the table and left her with a half-eaten sandwich and a half bowl of soggy cereal.

She found him upstairs in the office, throwing a bouncy ball against the wall repeatedly. Each bounce was harder than the last and she cleared her throat before he could put the ball through the wall. "Derek, I'm sorry," Penelope said. "I didn't mean to say that out loud."

He shrugged. "You made your feelings pretty clear."

"No, I made them very muddled," she said, sinking into his papa-san rocker with a grunt and a sigh. "I was trying to tell myself not to do all the things I've been wanting to because it's a bad idea. Because it will ruin what progress I've made in the last three weeks. Because it will break our relationship, and I can't lose you on top of everything else. You're already mad at me and I've been back all of three hours. I don't think that bodes well if we start… fucking."

He gripped the ball tighter. "You know what makes me horny?" he asked. "Listening to you tell me all the reasons we shouldn't be fucking each other. Because you've clearly thought about everything I could offer you – in great detail."

Her jaw dropped. "Derek!" she spluttered.

"It's the truth."

"We're best friends!"

"And you've been promising me a 'good morning' for years," he reminded her.

"Not lately!"

"Because you're scared and upset and who can blame you for that?"

"You're infuriating!"

He spun the chair around and appraised her. "And you're absolutely sexy as hell when you're angry," he replied. "You're sexy any time."

"I'm not what you want," she spluttered, standing up and gesturing wildly. "You want airhead skinny bitch supermodels who will leave you in the morning and let you get on with your life."

"Maybe once upon a time," Derek said with a predatory gleam in his eyes that made her feel weak in the knees. "But I'm a little fixated on my best friend right now."

She bit her lip. "Derek…"

"Yeah?" he asked with a hint of a smile.

"Oh, god, don't look at me like that," she whimpered. "Seriously, for once, please listen to me –"

"If you're going to tell me that you don't want me, save your breath."

"I want you," she said. "But you scare me. You scare me more than he ever did. Because you're real, and you're here, and you're my hero." He was still looking at her with those amused, lusty eyes that made her feel sick. "And one day, you'll realize you're with a chubby nobody with a big personality and huge damage and you'll just walk. I can't let you do that, so I won't put myself in that position. I won't do it."

"Penelope Anne Garcia," Derek rumbled, "do not make me turn you over my knee and give you the spanking you deserve."

"Derek Morgan –"

"I waited for you," he said. "I never really gave up, I just told myself you were dead so I could live with myself. I never stopped loving you, you silly girl."

"Rory Williams waited two thousand years for Amy Pond," she said. "So you don't count."

"What?"

"Doctor Who."

"Oh." He paused. "That's television."

"Sometimes, a girl just wants something like that," Penelope whispered. "Someone she can trust forever."

"Trust me," he insisted.

"I do – that's the problem."

"I'm going to count to ten and you're going to give me one damn good reason why I shouldn't take you into our bedroom and help you relieve a little tension," he said. "Ten… nine… eight…"

"I'M IN LOVE WITH YOU," she blurted out at the top of her lungs.

"Not good enough," he replied. "Seven… six…"

All the blood drained from her face. So many years, so many wasted chances…

"Five… four… three…"

"I'm in love with you and I'm scared," she whispered.

"Two… one…"

God help me, Penelope Garcia begged.

"Zero." He hesitated for a long moment, then said, "I love you, too, and I would never do anything to hurt you on purpose, Baby Girl."

"That may be true, but I'm still scared."

"Me, too," he finally said. "I'm scared that I'm not enough."

She stared at him. "You're kidding, right?"

"No."

"So we're both scared… for the same reason."

He nodded. "So it seems."

"I wanted to ask you something earlier, but I chickened out," Penelope said. "In the car."

"I'm listening, Baby," Derek encouraged.

"I… I want you to be Charlotte's daddy," she whispered, wishing the floor would open up and swallow her whole. "Not like a godfather, like a real dad. You don't have to be anything to me, just Derek Morgan, but I need you to accept her. Please."

"Is that all?" he asked, chuckling. "Baby Girl, I opened my home to you and your baby girl with the expectation of just that. You really think I could be that callous?"

"No, but this isn't what you want," she protested. "You don't want babies and a house and a picket fence and –"

"I didn't. But things change."

"I –"

"I love you."

"Don't just sit there and say that like you mean it," she said.

"What am I supposed to do then?" he asked. "Sit here and say that like I mean it while I think about getting you naked and bothered?"

"Not everything in the world is about sex!"

"You're absolutely right," he said, standing up. Before she knew what was happening, he had her backed up against a wall and she was almost hyperventilating because he had her caught, trapped, and she was torn between terrified and wanting him to just do something completely inappropriate. "Some things are about love."

Love!

When he kissed her, she was lost. She was floating on an endless sea, and her only option was to navigate toward him. She whimpered between hot, wet, delicious kisses, her ragged fingernails digging into his sides as he deepened each kiss and made her forget to breathe. Damn him! How could she protest when he was making such a convincing argument?

He was very, very persuasive, and she was very, very wound up.

It was a lethal combination.


	8. Chapter 8

Part eight:

He pulled out of the kiss and just stared at her. "Baby Girl," Derek murmured.

She cut him off. "No, don't, don't say it: I can do better," she promised weakly. "I can do better for you, I can be better, I can –"

"You're driving me crazy," he growled, kissing her again. When they came up for air, he said, "You don't have to convince me to be with you, and you can't do better: if you tried, you'd probably kill me."

"I'm not good at –"

"Baby Girl," he sighed, "that's him talking, isn't it?"

She blanched, all the blood draining from her face. "I guess –"

"Then shut up," he insisted. "Don't overthink it and don't think about being better. Just think about being you. You and me. Us. Together. Kissing and touching and fucking."

His low, earnest tone wound around her like a warm blanket, smothering her inadequacies and making her feel secure and needed and goddamn horny, to boot. His gaze was so intense, it burned like fire on her soul.

She swallowed what was left of her pride: after all, what did she need pride for if she was going to fling herself headfirst into a friends with benefits relationship? All she had left was her self-respect, and it was going to go up a few notches if she could make him happy.

"You're sure you want this?" she whispered, idly caressing the collar of his shirt. "You know what you're signing on for?"

"Penelope," he replied, "shut up and kiss me. I want you to kiss me."

She blinked at him, not understanding. "I was kissing you." Then it hit her: he'd initiated it and she'd gone along with it. She hadn't asked for it, he'd just given and let her take it as she would. But now he was asking her to carry on.

He made her feel safe, loved, and like nothing else in the world was going to hurt her again.

Of course she kissed him back: with every hope and dream in her heart, to boot.

"You still awake, Pen?" Derek murmured, never ceasing his fingers' gentle dance on her spine.

She moaned softly. "Mmmhmm."

He chuckled. "I don't have to ask if it was good, do I?"

"Magnificent, Adonis," she murmured. "Maybe I should ask you for perspective, though: my hormones are so shot I'm sure a picture of a block of wood would produce the same effect."

"Silly girl," he whispered, kissing her shoulder and pulling her closer. "I'm being serious."

"Me, too," she teased. They'd had a couple of rough stops and restarts in there before they finally got it right in the heat of the moment. He'd unthinkingly restrained her wrists with his hands and she started to panic. He'd grabbed her hips just the way – and she'd bitten him hard. Little things that were so far beyond her control that she refused to be embarrassed by them.

Derek Morgan was safe and she was very much loved. That he didn't push her about her reactions or take offense to them was proof enough of that.

And she was feeling slightly less horny. Only slightly, because he just kept touching her. That didn't help.

"You blow my mind," he whispered against her neck.

"You rocked my world – literally," she murmured, shifting so she could roll over and face him. His hand moved to the curved plane of her abdomen protectively. "Thank you," she whispered.

"You up for going out tonight?" he asked, kissing her forehead and pulling her closer under the sheets.

"No take-out and fucking?" she pouted.

He rolled his eyes and chuckled. "I'm not a new toy for you to break, Baby."

"I wanna get my money's worth," she teased, tickling him a little. "I suppose I can go out for a while," she finally said. "But I don't really have any clothes but what we got in Chicago."

"Baby girl, the guest closet is full of your clothes."

"Yes, but they weren't made for –"

"I'm sure you could find something," he teased.

"Are you being sizeist?"

"Absolutely not – I very much look forward to you getting that ass of yours back," he growled. "I've had a hell of a lot of fantasy time with those curves, Hot Mama. I want the real deal."

"My old clothes –"

"Might fit. Sort of."

She frowned, then sighed. "Do we have to go out?"

"Yup."

"Ugh."

She finally got a wrap dress to work. Sort of. She had to wear a camisole beneath it and use safety pins to make it look like she wasn't swimming in it, and the baby made the whole thing look kind of… awkward. It was turquoise and green with hints of white and purple, and every pair of shoes that she'd had before were uncomfortable as hell. She'd gotten used to comfort over fashion, GOD FORBID.

She finally got into a pair of purple kitten heels with white trim without as much agony as the others, and looked at herself in the mirror. She still felt like she was going to throw up when she looked at herself, but she quelled it. There was nothing else she could do to bring herself back without being herself.

Her wardrobe was too Old Penelope, all full of bright happy colors and cuts to flatter a full figure. She was New Penelope now: somber and reserved, incredibly thin but for the overly large baby bump that made her look so far beyond out of proportion. She changed glasses, to a pair of plain black ones: better.

She'd even muted her makeup. No metallic purple lipstick, no bright green eyeshadow. Simple pink lips and colorless, taupe makeup. She looked the way she felt on the inside: hollow and broken. Her bruises were gone, but their scars were forever.

She spiked her hair and added a simple silver chain and bracelet. She was done: that was all she could stomach. She looked like every other woman on the planet; she would blend in, be less of a target.

She couldn't help it. Everything was different now.

She just hoped that she wouldn't embarrass Derek wherever they were going. She didn't want that for him.

He was waiting patiently for her in the bedroom, buttoning the cuffs of his shirt. He let out a low whistle and she blushed. "Oh, stop it, I look horrible," she protested.

Derek's smile warmed her cold, broken heart. "Baby Girl, you look better than I do," he teased.

"Not possible," she replied, accepting his kiss. "Where are we going?"

"Somewhere nice," he evaded.

"No fair," she wheedled.

He chuckled. "And I don't trust you not to peek while we're driving, so you're going to have to wear a blindfold."

She swallowed hard. She hadn't told him about Silas's obsession with blindfolding her. That had been the one thing that had broken her beyond repair. Knowing he was going to do things to her was one thing: not being able to see it coming was another thing altogether. "Derek, no," she mumbled weakly. "Please no."

"Baby Girl, if you know where we're going, it'll spoil the surprise."

"I will never wear a blindfold again," she said, setting the room into a silent spinning battle of wills. She was surprised when he backed down.

"Why didn't you say –"

"I can't talk about it." She felt a little sick now, hiding things from him, but it was all she could do to get up in the morning and face the day. "I won't tell you because you'll just pity me more."

"I don't pity you ever." He tilted her chin up and kissed her gently. "Someday, maybe you'll let me in, Mama. And I'll be happy you did." He kissed her again. "No blindfold."

"I'm sorry." And she was. But she couldn't break off a piece of herself and hand it over. Not yet, maybe not ever.

"Don't be." He released her. "You do look wonderful."

"I had to try really hard," she sighed. "Can we go now so we can come back sooner? Please?"

"Baby, look at me," he said, still holding her hand, gently rubbing circles on the back. "I'm not going to let anyone hurt you. We're going out tonight and we're going to have fun. And you are so fucking incredibly beautiful it makes me sick that you can't see it." He squeezed her hand then let it go, heading to the dresser where he got her purse and offered it to her as a peace talisman. "Ready?"

She nodded. "Bring on the happy," she said, following him through the house and to his car. They drove in a comfortable silence, and she didn't recognize any of the route they took. They finally pulled up outside a modest house and he threw it into park. "There are a lot of cars," Penelope said cautiously.

"It's the best supper club outside of DC," he said with a quirky smirk. "It's kind of an underground thing." He helped her out of the car and they walked down the street, enjoying each other's company, the touch and feel of someone who meant the world to them. "You'll definitely want to close your eyes, though."

Despite her misgivings, she did as he asked, letting him lead her inside. "Ready, Mama?" Derek asked. She hesitated, but sucked it up and nodded. "Open your eyes, then, Silly Girl."

Her eyes fluttered open and she inhaled sharply. "Oh my god!"

"Welcome home, Pen!" JJ shouted, leading a sudden charge of voices echoing the sentiment.

Penelope was struck speechless to the point of tears. She swallowed and tried several times to voice her surprise, eventually giving up and bursting into happy tears.

"You made her cry!" Emily exclaimed, rushing over to comfort her. "She didn't mean to –"

"This is the nicest thing anybody's ever done for me!" Penelope blubbered, not knowing if the words were intelligible or not.

"C'mon, come sit down," Prentiss insisted, pulling Penelope over to a well-abused overstuffed couch. "I know it's a little tiny bit overwhelming, but –"

Penelope sniffled and whimpered, "It's so nice, I don't know – I don't know what I'd do without you guys."

The little boy next to her said, "Aunt Pellipee, Mommy said you shouldn't cry. Are you sad?"

Penelope wiped her eyes and looked down at the blonde-haired cutie that was a perfect replica of JJ. "Oh, no, Henry, I'm so happy that I couldn't keep it all in," she assured him. "Goodness, the last time I saw you, you were just – you were just a little, little Henry."

He smiled. "Yup, Mommy said I was two, and now I'm four," Henry declared proudly. "I'll be five soon, Aunt Pellipee." He flashed her five fingers and said, "Mommy says I have to be five before I can go to kidgarden."

JJ rolled her eyes. "Little Man, let's go get you some supper before you talk Aunt Penelope's ear off," she said, holding out her hand to her son. "What did I tell you about overwhelming her?" she asked as she led him out of the room.

Rossi pulled up a chair. "How're you feeling, Kitten?" he asked.

Penelope shrugged. "Okay, I guess."

"Is Morgan making you eat three squares?" he asked firmly.

"And snacks besides," Penelope assured.

"Good. Now, I want you to meet my fiancée," he said, gesturing. A thin, older redhead came over to join them. "Rhiannon, this is Penelope Garcia; Garcia, this is Rhiannon Scott. I'm sure you two will become great friends."

It went like that for a while: people she hadn't known from Adam or Eve were thrust into her circle and Penelope's brain was spinning in circles trying to absorb two and a half years of changes.

Derek was there as her unwavering support, though, joking and laughing with everyone, making sure she ate some dinner, and so on. He held her up so she could excel.

She wasn't sure when she noticed Emily and Reid sitting a little too close together on the other couch, hands entwined, but she definitely noticed the wedding bands. "OH MY GOD!" she yelped, all but knocking Derek over in her haste to jump off the couch and get over to them. "When did that happen?" Penelope demanded, grabbing Emily's hand and gushing over the simple rings. "SERIOUSLY! I go away for a while and when I come back, you guys have gone off and gotten hitched!"

Reid merely smiled a little, and Emily grinned. "Penny, we wanted to wait till you were home, but we went to Vegas last weekend and just got it over with already," Prentiss said. "You would've loved that we got married by an Elvis impersonator."

"Pics or it didn't happen," Penelope replied.

"Oh, now, play fair," Emily chuckled. "I haven't asked for any naked pictures of Derek Morgan."

"And you won't," Reid said firmly.

Emily grinned over at him. "I can look, but I have no intention of touching," she teased. "I'm a happily married woman here."

"I'm excited for you!" Penelope gushed. "When did he propose? How did he –"

Emily laughed and let Penelope go crazy. "We went to Iowa on a case last winter and got snowed in, and he asked me while we were stuck in a hotel in the middle of nowhere with no power and about two feet of snow."

"It was cozy," Reid protested, a smile in his eyes.

"It was cold," Emily countered, poking him in the side and laughing.

"It was cold," Hotch agreed as he came into the room. "Sorry we're late – Corinne had an issue with work."

"Corinne?" Penelope asked. Another new person?

"You remember Jack, of course," Hotch said even as Jack and Henry were out of the room like a shot, headed for the stairs. "But I don't think you've met my wife. Corinne, this is Penelope Garcia; Penelope, this is Corinne Jones Hotchner."

"Everybody keeps getting married and I'm just…" Penelope frowned. "It's nice to meet you, Corinne." She extended her hand to the woman that was, physically, the polar opposite of Hayley. Where Hayley had been small and thin, Corinne was tall and very rounded. Her smile was small and genuine, however. "I suppose you work for…"

"The Department of Defense," Corinne supplied. "I'm General Clayton's executive assistant."

"That must be a… daunting job." Penelope rose to her feet. "Sorry, I need to excuse myself for a couple of minutes," she said, retreating to the bathroom. While the baby was playing kickball with her bladder, she just wanted to escape the room for a few minutes. She'd been gone for two years: everything had changed, and she was stuck in a holding pattern of holding.

She wanted things to be the way they were before: the intrepid crime-fighters making the world safe for everyone but the crazy people and the killers. Now, she was the odd man out. She wasn't included. She was the little girl in the corner, trying to understand why no one liked her. The party was for her, but she felt out of place.

She knew she'd been in the bathroom too long when she heard a tap on the door, followed by Derek Morgan's voice. "You fall in, gorgeous?"

Penelope took a deep breath and tried to hide that she'd been crying. Yeah, that wasn't happening. Her mascara was smudged and her eyes were pink-rimmed. "No, I just – I'm funned out, Derek. I want to go home." Before anyone asked her what was wrong now.

"JJ made dessert –"

This time when she said it, she meant it. "I'm not hungry."

"Penelope, open the door," he instructed.

"Not till you tell me we're going home," she countered, trying to clean up her smudgy makeup. He didn't respond, and she figured he was going to slink away with his tail between his legs.

HA! No such luck. He was in the bathroom with a key he'd sweet-talked out of JJ within a couple of minutes, and she was cornered. "Baby Girl, what's wrong?" he asked.

"Hotch forgot Hayley and got married and Reid and Emily shacked up and even Rossi's got somebody and – and it's wrong because I wasn't gone that long and everything is so wrong now!" she exclaimed, bursting into tears again. She was never having another baby: the hormones were killing her. Everything made her want to cry or throw things at people. Or fuck Derek. But that was – okay, that one was understandable. He was eminently fuckable.

"Is she okay?" JJ asked from the doorway.

"Hormones," Derek said as if it explained everything.

Penelope hated that everything came down to hormones. She was a one-word advertisement for birth control, for chrissake! "I'm fine," she snarled.

"Yeah, Derek, maybe you ought to let me talk to her," JJ said. "Go get something to eat."

"I don't want to talk," Penelope muttered.

"I know," JJ agreed. "And that's okay. Believe me, the day Hotch announced very casually that he was dating Corinne, I pretty much had a thousand fits on the road to hell. And then they got married. She's nice enough and all, but she's not Hayley."

"It's not her, it's all of this," Penelope bit out, waving. "I'm so out of my depth, Jay-ge."

"Families change," JJ reminded her softly. "All the time. The one thing that hasn't changed is how much we love you." There was a knock on the door, and she cried, "Oh, go away!"

Will opened the door and said, "Sorry, hon, but Little Miss wants you."

JJ sighed and accepted the squirmy baby girl from him. "Okay, Sharon, you'd better behave," JJ warned, "or I'll make Uncle Spence hold you." Will chuckled and retreated. JJ rolled her eyes. "Sorry, it's just getting out of hand now."

Penelope gestured wildly with her hands. "This is what I'm talking about! I didn't know you guys had another baby! I don't know anything and everyone expects me to just absorb it all and be happy to be included!"

JJ was silent, bouncing a squirming, fussy Sharon on her hip. "Are you quite finished?" she finally asked.

Penelope lowered her eyes. "Yes," she said meekly.

"Good, because your mascara is running down your face and we have all kinds of food and cake and ice cream," JJ said. "It's your party, Penelope, and you're going to damn well shut up and like it. We've got to plan the Reid-Prentiss post-wedding shindig, and I need you to be my wingman. So whatever you need to get over, get over it. I'm not in the mood."

Penelope bit her lip. "Okay," she mumbled.

At least she'd shown up, right?


	9. Chapter 9

Part nine:

"You're sure you'll be okay?" Derek asked.

Penelope smiled and shrugged. "It's four days," she said. "I can't fly or I'd be there in a heartbeat. Don't worry about me – if I need anything, I'll call JJ. I'm going to Emily and Spence's tonight, and we'll all meet up at Hotch's for presents tomorrow morning." She was still trying to convince him to get to the airport before he missed his flight. "Go see your mom and have a damn good Christmas," she ordered, grabbing his duffel and thrusting the strap into his hands.

"Baby Girl, you promise me if anything happens, you'll call me."

She smiled. "Hot Stuff, you're number one on my speed dial." She stood on her tip-toes and kissed him. "Tell Fran I love her and I'm sorry I can't be there."

Derek tweaked her chin gently. "It's supposed to be winter mix tonight," he reminded her. "Could you take my car to the Reid's? Esther needs new tires."

Penelope rolled her eyes and nodded. "Yes, dear," she agreed. "I'll take your flashy mid-size sedan."

It was his turn to roll his eyes.

"Get outta here before you miss your flight!" Penelope ordered.

He kissed her again before grabbing his bags and heading for the garage.

She hoped he wouldn't blame her for sending him off, but he needed to be with his family and away from her for a while.

Once she knew he was gone, she retreated to the bathroom and fired up a hot shower. Her back had been bothering her all day, to the point she'd called the doctor's office. She'd been curtly informed that it was Christmas Eve and that it was most likely a spasm caused by the baby sitting on nerve clusters. Not that knowing that helped any: it still hurt like a son of a bitch periodically. The hot water helped, easing the ache for a while.

When she'd dried off and gotten dressed again, she checked her phone. Her brow creased when she saw she had a voicemail.

"Hey, gorgeous," Derek said. "I'm at the airport, and I'm about to go through security and board. You must be taking a nap or something, but I just wanted to let you know that I love you and I miss you already. How do you do that, Penelope? You make me wish I could carry you with me everywhere: I don't know why I love you so much, but I can't think about you moving out and finding someone else now. I know it's going to happen eventually, but right now, I don't want to share you with anyone. Baby, I've got to go. Love you."

She inhaled deeply, then dialed his number, knowing it was going to go straight to voicemail. "Hot Stuff, just ask me already. You might be surprised with my answer," she said softly. "And don't forget we have to finish baby shopping when you get home." She ended the call.

If he asked her to marry him, her answer would be yes. There was no one else. There wouldn't be anyone else. Even if he didn't ask her, there wouldn't be anyone else. No one else understood.

She had about twenty armloads of presents to load into the car and she was supposed to be at the Reid's in an hour. Time waits for no pregnant woman.

"You okay?" Emily asked. "You look pale."

"I pulled my back," Penelope dismissed with a wave of the hand. "It's hurting pretty bad, but I'm fine. I don't think I'll be able to get the stuff out of the car, though."

"Come sit down – Spence and I can bring your stuff in," Emily assured her, leading Penelope into the dining room. "You want something to drink? We made chai this morning."

"Do you have any juice?" Penelope asked.

"Sure – apple, cranberry, pomegranate…?"

"Whatever," Penelope said, sliding into a chair and leaning against the table. "Derek should be in Chicago in a couple of hours."

"I can't believe you actually talked him into going without you," Emily said, shaking her head as she poured a glass of cranberry juice. "How'd you finally do it?"

"The guilt card – his mom."

"Ah, well, she's a nice lady and he doesn't see her enough," Emily agreed. "You just sit here and relax: I'll get Spence to get your stuff from the car."

Penelope tried to relax but the insistent ache in her back turned into an intense throbbing that felt like she was being stabbed repeatedly. By the time Emily came back into the room, it had dissipated. Penelope looked up at her and said, "I think we need to call JJ."

"Why?" Emily asked. "You think I can't handle taking care of you for one night?" she teased.

"No, I think I'm in labor," Penelope retorted.

"What? It's too early."

Penelope looked at her and glared. "Babies never come when they're expected," she said. "I need JJ."

"We need to call Derek –"

"Derek can't do anything from the plane or Chicago," Penelope argued. She dug around in her purse and called JJ.

"Hey, can you hold on a sec?" JJ asked. "Henry, hold the ribbon like that, and pull –"

"Jay-ge, I need you to come to Em's," Penelope said.

"What? Why?"

Emily grabbed the phone out of Penelope's hand. "She thinks she's in labor. No, she doesn't want to call Morgan. You'll meet us at the hospital? Right. She looks pretty calm to me, but – right. Okay. Fifteen minutes." She hung up and looked at Penelope. "How far apart are your contractions?"

"I thought I pulled my back –"

"How far apart?"

Penelope blushed. "Three minutes."

"ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?" Emily grabbed her arm and hoisted her up. "Pen, you're going to drop that kid in the car on the way to the hospital if we don't move it." She paused. "You have a go-bag, right?"

"I brought clothes for tonight and the next couple of days," Penelope hedged. "But I didn't have a hospital bag packed yet."

"Of course not, because –"

"The baby's not due for another month," Penelope finished.

"Yeah, I'll have to send Spence to get whatever JJ thinks you need," Emily said. She helped Penelope into her coat and sighed. "Were you in labor when Derek left?"

"Maybe. Yes, I guess. I don't know – I swear, I thought I just pulled my back funny this morning."

"You did this before," Emily reminded her.

"By myself," Penelope said, "with no clock or watch, no help, and no doctors waiting at a hospital for me. I didn't have any – OH." She went weak in the knees with the new contraction, but Emily held her upright. "Any perspective," she panted. "Oh, god, that HURTS!"

They staggered past Reid who held bags loaded down with brightly-papered gifts. "Where are you guys going?" he asked.

"The hospital!" Emily called back over her shoulder. "Call JJ and get her to tell you what Pen needs!"

It was a busy night at the hospital.

They'd barely gotten Penelope into a bed and glanced at by a nurse when the baby started crowning. JJ was on one side of the bed and Emily was on the other, both holding tight to Penelope's hands, giving her unwavering support and instructions from the doctor. Breathe, don't push just yet, keep breathing –

There was no holding things back, though, and Penelope took a deep breath and pushed until she saw stars. "Good job," JJ assured her. "Good girl." The next contraction seized and she pushed again, wishing to god she hadn't made Derek leave. Emily sponged off her forehead and Penelope gritted her teeth and pushed like her life depended on it.

She felt the head pop loose and the baby started to cry but the next few pushes were a struggle. She couldn't bite back the scream of agony, heard someone say as if from far away, "The shoulders are stuck." She was on the verge of blacking out when the baby finally came loose.

"It's a girl," the doctor pronounced.

Penelope nodded weakly and lost consciousness.

When she managed to open her eyes again, they had her on oxygen and JJ and Emily were nowhere to be found. "Doctor –" she croaked.

"There we go," he said, looking down at her. "We were worried there for a couple of minutes. You stopped breathing and your heart rhythm went erratic."

"The baby –"

"Healthy: seven pounds, six ounces, twenty-one inches long. Ten fingers, ten toes, adorable little girl."

"My friends –"

"They're in the waiting room," he said. "We had to shock your heart to get it going again. I didn't think they needed to see that."

"Good call," Penelope mumbled. "I feel like crap."

"You were out for almost half an hour."

She nodded and closed her eyes again. "Why would - why would I pass out like that?"

"The baby got stuck on its way through the birth canal," he said. "Your heart and lungs went into overload and burnt out by the time she was actually out in the world. You're going to be fine, but we're keeping you on the juice for the next couple of days. Merry Christmas, eh?"

"Hey, Santa came a little early," she mumbled.

"We're going to get you wheeled into a room and bring your friends in," the doctor promised. "And you can ask to see your daughter at any time once you're settled."

Penelope nodded. "Her name is Charlotte," she said softly. "Charlotte Francis Garcia Morgan."

"She's definitely got a lot to live up to with a name like that," the doctor teased with a smile.

Penelope smiled back. "She's going to be a doctor. Or an FBI agent."

He laughed more and said, "It's been a pleasure working with you, Miss Garcia."

"Thank you," Penelope murmured. "Merry Christmas."

About an hour later, she was in a private room and they finally let JJ and Emily in. "Are you okay?" JJ asked worriedly.

"Fine," Penelope assured her. "I just have to be careful and stay on oxygen for a while. They had to use the defib machine on me. I'll be fine."

"Have you seen Charlotte yet?" Emily asked.

Penelope shook her head. "They wanted me to settle in and rest before I asked to see her."

JJ nodded. "Good thinking. Are you up for it, then?"

"Everyone else is in the waiting room," Emily said. "We called them when you stopped breathing."

"I want to see Charlotte first," Penelope said, prioritizing. "Then I suppose I should call Derek." Emily nodded and left the room.

"Yeah, he's not going to be able to get a flight out for another couple of days," JJ said with a sigh. "A bad storm blew in right after he landed. I've been keeping track of it on my phone. So you're stuck with us taking care of you."

"That's okay," Penelope murmured. "You've done a great job so far. Seriously, thank you –"

"Don't mention it," JJ said with a smile. "I'm just glad I could help."

Emily came back with a nurse and a bassinette. "One baby girl, just for you," she said, gesturing like a game show host.

The moment Penelope laid eyes on her daughter, she knew everything she'd done for this little girl hadn't been in vain. She laid her sleeping baby on her chest, offering her comfort and warmth. "Hi, sweetheart," she whispered, "I'm your mommy. And you're perfect."

JJ took a picture with her phone and excused herself to give the team an update. She sent Derek a photo text with the caption, "Hi, Daddy: I know I'm a little early, but Mommy said it's okay and she loves me anyway." Oh, to be a fly on the wall when he got it.

When she stepped into the waiting room, Rossi hopped up. "Is she okay?" he asked.

JJ nodded. "Yeah, she's having a moment with the baby. She's going to be on oxygen for a couple of days to make sure she has no more issues, but she's looking a lot better."

"Has anyone told Morgan what's going on yet?" Hotch inquired.

"I sent him a text," JJ replied. Her phone started humming. "Speak of the devil – Derek, hi…"

"What the hell, JJ?"

"She went into labor and we got to the hospital and waited for almost an hour before they got her into a bed," JJ said. "And then there were complications. There wasn't time to call you."

"Is she okay?"

"Yes," JJ hedged. "Charlotte is good and strong: seven pounds, six ounces, and twenty-one inches long."

"And Penelope? You said there were complications." The panic in his voice was very real.

"Charlotte got stuck and Pen had some issues; she's on oxygen for a couple of days."

"JJ, what happened? Is she okay?"

"She stopped breathing and they had to shock her heart back into rhythm," JJ sighed. "But she's okay now, I promise. Don't worry: we have everything under control here. You're not getting out of Chicago any time soon."

"We landed in St. Louis," Derek said. "I'm coming back."

"You're not in –"

"Flights are delayed about an hour," Derek said. "I'll need someone to pick me up – I'm going to try to be on the next flight back."

"Okay," JJ said.

"Don't tell her," he said. "I want it to be surprise. All things considered, I think it's appropriate."

"Definitely," JJ replied, smiling. "See you when you get here."

"Morgan?" Rossi asked.

"Who else?" JJ replied, putting her phone back into her pocket. "Ready to see them?"

"Of course," Reid finally spoke up. "And I brought her bag."

"Well, come on then," JJ instructed.

Derek looked in the nursery window, his bags still strapped all over him. He was looking for the placard that said "Garcia", but couldn't find it. He glanced through them all again and fell on one that said "Morgan" – how he'd missed that before, he'd never know. He smiled at the little girl in her pink blanket with no hair and a funny, scrunched up face like her mama's mad face. She was his now, too.

He'd never been happier or more proud of anyone than in this moment. Twice in a year, Penelope Garcia had amazed him with her sheer determination to live and give back to life. He wanted to give her everything: a home, a life, a family. He didn't want her to feel like she had to fight in order to live anymore.

He turned and headed down the corridor. He paused in the doorway, catching Emily's eye with a wink. She got up, careful not to disturb Penelope, and joined him in the hall. "Hey, how was the flight?" she asked very quietly.

"Hell."

"Sorry – did you get something to eat on the way?"

"Yeah, we stopped. Spence says to meet him downstairs and I'm supposed to take over from here," Derek said with a smile. "Go enjoy your Christmas."

"Oh, I already am," Emily assured him. "I've got a god-daughter."

"Go home and get some rest," Derek ordered, laughing. "We can talk about the god-parent thing later."

He went into the room and closed the door, quietly dropping his bags on the floor. Penelope was sleeping in the bed and all the lights were off, save the bathroom light, and that door was ajar. He leaned down and kissed her cheek. She made a very quiet noise and rolled onto her side, whimpering slightly in her sleep.

He was so proud of her.


	10. Chapter 10

Part ten:

"You've failed your psych eval four times now," Strauss said, crossing her arms over her chest.

"Yeah," Garcia said, "well, the first one was right after I was removed from a hostage situation. The second one was while I was in the middle of dealing with that trauma. And I haven't slept more than an hour or two since Charlotte was born: so there go the other two." She crossed her arms defensively over her chest. "This is why you gave me a year off."

"Have you begun polishing your computer skills?"

"I'm not going to be able to be the best anymore," Garcia said. "I've fallen too far behind the times. I can still hack dirty, but it takes longer."

Strauss lifted an eyebrow. "I'd heard about you attempting to hack the Interpol databases last week… we looked the other way, but you need to stop raising flags."

"You're asking for unreasonable things," Penelope hissed. "I need more time. I'm trying."

"Aren't you the one that told me that hacking computer systems was like breathing to you, Miss Garcia?" Strauss challenged, arching an eyebrow.

"Yeah, well, that's been altered to changing diapers, cleaning spit-up and listening to a two month old baby cry all the time," Penelope muttered. "I need time to get back into the groove."

"You have seven months," Strauss said. "We need you back. You don't have any idea how much time and energy we're losing to the tech pool because they simply do not have your skill set."

"I'm flattered," Garcia muttered, "even though that sounds like an insult."

"You do realize that this isn't a request," Strauss said. "I'm keeping you on borrowed time. They want you either working or in prison."

"I swear to god, I'm working on it," Garcia said very quietly.

"I'm bending every rule by letting you and your child co-habitate with Agent Morgan."

"I know," Garcia said. "And I appreciate your efforts."

"It's to facilitate your recovery, Miss Garcia."

Garcia looked Strauss in the eye, not liking the implications of those few words. That she would be forced to walk away as soon as she was emotionally stable again.

She was going to break their precious rules.

Penelope slammed her laptop closed and went back to nursing Charlotte. She was tired of trying so hard and accomplishing nothing. The pressure that Strauss was trying to exert was making her sick. Derek and the team had been on a case for six days and she had only slept once or twice, even with Charlotte finally sleeping all night.

When Derek wasn't there, Penelope slipped back into her sleepless restlessness because without him, the nightmares ate her alive. So she sat awake and taught herself new code and tried to crack the newest encryptions. It was more difficult than it looked.

She was miserable.

Her phone beeped. New text from Stud Muffin. "Hey, Baby. Coming home tonight. I'll bring take out and drinks."

Her thumb swiped across the screen. "Strauss is a twatwaffle. Charlotte finally sleeping but not me."

"Tell Strauss to fuck off. And you'll sleep well tonight."

"Promises, promises, Hot Stuff."

"I'm going to make good. Wheels up in five. ILUBBGRL."

Penelope smiled. No matter how shitty her day (or night) was, he could say that and everything was instantly so much better. Charlotte stopped eating and started fussing, so Penelope covered up and put the baby on her shoulder. It was time for another round of spit-up.

When Derek got home, he found Penelope passed out on the couch with Charlotte cuddled up on her chest. He smiled at the scene, then frowned when he saw the laptop open with a notepad file full of programming gibberish visible. Penelope was working herself into the ground and not sleeping, and he knew it was all because of Strauss and her threats.

Charlotte looked up at him and burbled, flailing her little arms around. Derek smiled and picked her up. "Hello, Lotsa Love," he murmured. "Mommy's sleepy, so you and I should go get a bottle, shouldn't we?" The baby gurgled and burrowed against his chest. "Silly Lottie," he said. "I missed you, too."

Penelope started awake, nearly rolling off the couch. "Charlotte?" she called out, fumbling for her glasses, not remembering that she'd pushed them up onto her head.

"I've got her," Derek assured her. "Your glasses are on the top of your head."

She shoved her glasses back onto her nose and frowned. "I fell asleep –"

"Yes, you did," he replied with a grin. "Now go back to bed."

"I'm awake now," she said, saving her file and closing the laptop. "I guess restringing that encryption really wore me out."

"You need to stop working so hard," he scolded. "You're not sleeping enough."

Charlotte started to fuss, so Penelope automatically stood up and reached for her.

"Hey, uh-uh," Derek said, shaking his head. "It's my turn."

"Your mom called earlier," she said. "She wants you to call her back."

"Mom can wait," he replied. "Reid and Emily are going to take Lotsa Love for the night," he said, "so you can get some rest. And, before you say anything, I didn't ask them to: they volunteered. So maybe you could pack some stuff for her?"

"You guys just got back from a case –"

"So? You look like you've run a hundred marathons. It'll just be quiet time for us tonight."

Penelope exhaled and nodded. "Okay, but it's the first time we've been apart since she was born."

"I know, but you need some sleep," he scolded. "No more slaving over the computer tonight. We're going to have a bubble bath and Chinese and cuddle."

"Call your mom," Penelope said, rolling her eyes.

"Hey, I'm trying to be considerate here –"

"Sorry, it's been a bad day," Penelope said, crossing her arms defensively over her chest. "Strauss flunked me on my psych evaluation again and threatened me. I have seven months to get back up to speed and back at work or I'm back in prison or worse."

"You'll be ready," Derek said. "Stop sweating it."

"You don't get it," Penelope shouted. "She knows we're living together and the only reason she's not protesting it is because she thinks it's essential for my 'recovery'."

"It is."

"She's going to make me disappear for good if I don't perform to her exact specifications in the given time," she said very quietly. "I'm not going to let that happen. Which means spending all my time relearning skills I never had in the first place. No smutty happy fun time, no extra time off and away, and god knows I'm going to be a shitty mother because I have to concentrate on being able to KEEP MY CHILD!" Her voice had raised to a fevered pitch of a scream, vicious and frightened and frightening all at once. Charlotte's little face crumpled and she started wailing, burying her face in Derek's shoulder. "Great, now she's off her head!" Penelope threw her hands in the air. "I can't do this!"

Derek jiggled Charlotte till she calmed down a little. "You can," he said, "because you have me to help you. And tonight, you need to rest."

"Where were you two days ago when I had the migraine from hell and spent all day throwing up?" Penelope challenged. "You were in Texas. I have to do this myself, Morgan." She wanted to bite back the last word and the snide tone that it emerged upon but she couldn't take back what had already been said. "Give me the baby. We're going for a drive."

"Okay, let me get my keys-"

"No, you're staying here. My daughter and I are going for a drive and if we happen to stop at the store and get milk, eggs and diapers, so be it." Penelope took Charlotte from Derek's arms. "I'm pissed the hell off, Derek. Don't try to tell me I don't have the right."

Her mother had always told her not to drive when she was angry: bad things happened. Like backing up in the garage and forgetting to raise the door first. Or driving Esther into a pond because she was screaming at some stupid boy.

Penelope never saw the car that plowed into her. She just felt the jarring crush of impact, then the nauseating flip that left the car inverted.

Her head felt like someone had shoved an ice pick into it. The airbag had gone off and she was struggling to move. Charlotte was screaming bloody murder in her car seat, but Penelope couldn't move to comfort the baby.

"Ma'am? Ma'am – I called 911," someone called through the broken window. "Do you have someone I need to contact? Ma'am, what's your name?"

She licked her lips. "Pen..elope," she exhaled.

"Penelope, you're going to be okay," the man said. "The other guy is dead. It was his fault – he ran the red light."

She tried to turn her head to look at the rearview mirror, but she couldn't do it. Every part of her was screaming in agony, so she held still. "My… daughter," she croaked.

"I can't get either of you out," the man said. "But people are on the way."

"Derek's going to be pissed about the car," she mumbled.

"I don't think anybody is going to care about the car if you guys are okay," the man said, trying to reassure her. He reached in through the broken window and used a pocket knife to rip a hole in the airbag so it would deflate. "My name is Richard," he said, "and I'm not leaving till you two are okay."

"Thank you," she breathed.

Derek flipped through the sports channels. He didn't want to fight with Penelope but she had this annoying habit of twisting facts to suit her needs and she'd been spoiling for a battle. Better him than Strauss and the entire FBI.

Nothing held his interest so he flipped to the news. After they started talking about the usual anti-terrorism bullshit, they broke in with a local report from Quantico, near the FBI HQ.

They showed CCTV footage of a horrifying two-car accident. The dark sedan had been turning left when a light-colored minivan flew into the intersection, slamming into the driver's side of the sedan, sending it flying back toward traffic, flipping onto the roof as it went.

"Currently, approximately four blocks have been cordoned off and authorities are re-routing traffic around this fatality crash," the anchor intoned.

His phone rang. The ID said "Baby Mama", so he smiled, thinking she might just have forgiven him after all. "Hey, Baby Girl, are you done being pissed now?"

"You're listed as the emergency contact in Penelope Garcia's phone," someone said. "Who am I speaking to?"

"SSA Derek Morgan, FBI," he said. "Who is this?"

"Miss Garcia has been in an accident, sir – we're in the process of trying to remove her and her daughter from the car, but I need to know if she has any allergies."

"IS SHE ALL RIGHT?" Derek demanded.

"Sir, I need you to remain calm. The baby has been removed from the car – she has some cuts and bruising but seems to be fine. Miss Garcia is in a more difficult position to extract and we can't ascertain her injuries until we get her out of the car."

Derek's heart almost stopped. "Shit," he exhaled. "I… do I need to meet you at the hospital or –"

"Allergies?"

Derek rattled them off, in shock. "I'll meet you at the hospital," he said.

"Sir, wait – they've gotten her loose and she's asking for you."

A moment later, he heard a faint whisper. "I busted up your Lexus."

"Baby Girl, I don't care about the fucking car," Derek said forcefully. "Be good. I'll be at the hospital in a few minutes."

"Me, too," she joked very weakly. "Maybe we should hook up, Hot Stuff?"

"Mama, you couldn't handle it if we did," he murmured.

"Oh, I could make an exception for you…"

He grabbed his keys and all but ran to the garage. When he hopped into Esther, he felt a little out of his element, but he knew she'd forgive him for gunning it to 90 to get to the hospital to meet her. "Baby Girl, don't stop talking to me," he ordered as he opened the garage door and threw Esther into reverse.

"Sorry, Handsome," she exhaled. "They're gonna give me oxygen."

"Then make someone hold the phone because I've got a lot to say to you, Mama," he snapped.

"You're on speaker," one of the paramedics said.

"Good," Derek said, roaring down the road. "You didn't give me a chance earlier to talk to you before you left, Penelope Anne. You just threw a tantrum and got the hell outta Dodge. Which wasn't very fair of you, you know. Strauss gave you shit today and you were spoiling for a fight. But let me tell you something, Baby Girl – she was wrong to threaten you, and she won't get away with it. I won't let her. She is not breaking up our family and you aren't going anywhere if I can help it. Not you and not Charlotte. You're my girls and I'll be fucking damned if I'm giving you up for anything."

He stopped for a red light, but gritted his teeth and muttered, "Fuck this – I'm not stopping for any goddamn red lights."

"DEREK!" Penelope hollered, though it was muffled by the oxygen mask.

"Baby Girl, shut it – when it's the person you love more than life, you don't fucking stop for red lights," Derek snapped. "And yes, I do love you, Silly Girl. More than you know. So shut the hell up and listen to me. You and I are done dancing around the fraternization rules and we're done pretending that we're best friends. Pick a date: any date. We're getting married then and, so help me god, Erin Strauss is going to have to go suck an egg."

He parked and ran into the ER. "Have they brought Penelope Garcia in yet?" he demanded. "Big crash, fatality –"

"Sir, you need to take a seat," the secretary said. "We'll call you when it's your turn."

"You don't understand," Derek said. "My fiancée is being brought in – and my daughter."

"I didn't say yes," Penelope croaked.

"You don't get a say right now," he snapped into the phone. He turned back to the secretary. "You'd better get me in there with them in about five seconds or I'm calling the Director of the FBI and getting some fucking results."

A nurse stepped from behind a door. "Mr. Morgan, this way," she insisted. "Miss Garcia has a concussion, a couple of broken ribs and a broken ankle – we're going to do a full body scan to make sure we haven't missed anything. Your daughter has a few superficial cuts and bruises, and a broken thumb. She's going to be fine."

"And is Penelope going to be fine?" Derek asked.

"She's asking for you."

"I'm sure she is," Derek said, following the nurse back to the little curtained off space where they had Penelope and Charlotte. The baby was curled up on a gurney, sound asleep under a blanket. Penelope was on oxygen and looking very out of it. "Baby Girl, I'm never fighting with you again," he promised, grabbing Penelope's hand. "Last time we fought, you ended up going missing for two years. And now this?"

She cracked a tiny smile. "I love you," she mouthed. "Sorry."

"No, I'm sorry," he murmured. "How are you feeling?"

She held one hand up – it was shaking hard – and flashed him a thumbs down before letting it fall back to the bed like a lead weight.

"I'm sorry, sweetheart," he whispered. "I love you and you're going to be okay. You have to be okay because we're going to stick it to Erin Strauss, Baby Girl. We're gonna get married and I'm gonna make her be your fucking Matron of Honor just to piss her off."

Her weak smile returned. "Ask me for real, Hot Stuff," she whispered.

"Mama, you're the most beautiful woman I've ever laid eyes on, and you're the smartest, sexiest, awesomest best friend on the planet. You're the best mom and the best thing I've ever had in my life. Will you give me the honor of making you my wife? And sticking it to Erin Strauss?"

She nodded and squeezed his hand. "Because you said I'm sexy," she rasped.

"You know why I call you Mama?" Derek asked with a smile. "It's short for 'My Hot Baby Mama'."

"You called me Mama before I was pregnant," she said, glowering at him.

"Wishful thinking," he teased, kissing her forehead. "I left the ring at home – I think I left the TV and all the lights on and maybe didn't lock the doors."

"Don't need a ring," Penelope sighed.

"Is this how it's going to be?" he asked. "You being stubborn and willful and –"

"Mmmhmm," she murmured.

He smiled. "Good," he whispered. "Because I wouldn't want it any other way."

END


End file.
